Boxing Result: Nickolai Valuev – Monte Barrett

Nickolai Valuev kept hold of his WBA Heavyweight title with a 11th round stoppage over challenger Monte Barrett at the Allstate Arena in Chicago on a Don King promotion. Early on Barrett kept in the fight with the enormous Valuev by basically flinging as many roundhouse shots as he could muster. The technique was successful to a degree but never hurt Valuev, who began to dictate the action midway through the bout.

The eighth round saw Barrett, 31-5 (17), hit the floor but the challenger was in real trouble in the eleventh when Valuev, 45-0 (33), decked him twice. To Barrett’s credit, he beat the count both times but after the second knockdown of the eleventh, the New Yorker’s corner had seen enough and threw in the towel at 2:12 of the round.

The real firefight of the night came, as expected, during the rematch between WBC Light Heavyweight Champion Tomasz Adamek and challenger Paul Briggs. The two went at it from the start as Briggs, from Australia, floored the champion in the very first round but could not finish Adamek. The Polish fighter battled his way back into contention and just as in the first fight, used his skill advantage to negate the power advantage of Briggs, 25-3 (18). Adamek, 31-0 (21), had a point taken away in the ninth for two low blows but mounted a furious effort in the last round to shade the scorecards and pull out scores of 115-111, 114-112 and 113-113 to take a majority decision victory.

Also on the bill:

Nate Campbell, 29-5-1 (24), decisively won an IBF Lightweight eliminator with a domineering performance against Matt Zegan, 37-2 (21), dropping the Polish fighter in the first and sixth rounds for a unanimous decision.

Former middleweight world champion Keith Holmes, 40-4 (25), defeated the much less experienced Cory Cummings, 15-2 (12), at light heavyweight by unanimous decision.

Irish heavyweight Kevin McBride, 34-5-1 (29), saw any good feelings left over from his victory over Mike Tyson vanish as opponent Mike Mollo,17-1 (11), flattened the “Clones Colossus” in the second round.