JULIUS INDONGO produced an emphatic upset on the Denis Lebedev-Murat Gassiev undercard in Russia yesterday when he flattened IBF super-lightweight champion Eduard Troyanovsky in 40 seconds.
The heavy-handed defending champion was a heavy favourite, boxing in his home country to make the third defence of his super-lightweight crown.
However Indongo – fighting outside of his native Namibia for the first time – clearly hadn’t read the script and earned his second consecutive first round finish.
Neither man had barely even warmed into the fight when southpaw Indongo tried his luck with a looping left hook, which landed clean and removed Troyanovsky from his senses. He instantly went horizontal and referee Mark Calo-Oy dispensed with the count and waved the fight over, prompting exuberant celebrations from Julius and his team in front of a silenced Russian crowd.
Troyanovsky looked in a bad way at first but, thankfully, found his feet and was OK after a few minutes. It was the first defeat of the 36-year-old’s career while 33-year-old Indongo improved to 21-0 (11).
There was another first round win elsewhere on the show as Dmitry Kudryashov violently finished Santander Silgado at 1-14 of their cruiserweight clash.
Rakhim Chakhiev endured three knockdowns against Maksim Vlasov at cruiserweight but managed to floor his man in the sixth. However the home favourite was stopped in the seventh of an all-out war.
