Steve Claggett took a significant step forward in his quest to secure his first career world championship fight, while Steven Butler showed that the road to another opportunity at the top could be particularly complicated.
In the finale of the Eye of the Tiger Management gala presented Tuesday night at the Cabaret du Casino de Montréal, the Albertan defended his NABF super lightweight belt along with the WBO international belt thanks to his unanimous decision victory. (99-91, 99-91 and 98-92) against Mexican Miguel Maduen.
In the semifinals, in his first appearance since losing to WBO middleweight champion Zhanibek Alimkhanuly last May, Butler (33-4-1, 27 KOs) defeated Ivan Alvarez (32-15-4) by stoppage at 2:36 . 9th round at the end of a frantic duel in which the defense was not in the center of attention.
In other bouts featured on the undercard, Imam Khataev (5-0, 5 KOs) and Mehmat Nadir Ünal (7-0, 6 KOs) were as brilliant as they were in their last appearance on October 11, this time narrowly defeating Fernando Galvan (8-9-1) and Jaime Hernandez Lopez (10-11). Khataev won by stoppage at 0:44 of the 2nd round after landing a powerful right to Galvan’s head, while Ünal forced his opponent to retire after the 2nd round, possibly due to a shoulder injury.
Although he didn’t look like much at first glance, Grzegorz Mardyla (1-1-1) gave an interesting opposition to Wilkens Mathieu (5-0), who won by unanimous decision of the judges that the three judges split the cards 60-54. Mardyla, a former kickboxer, presented a solid defense that made Mathieu work harder than he expected. The athlete from the Quebec region hopes to return to the ring on January 13 at the Videotron Center.
In the opener, Frenchman Moreno Fendero (2-0, 1 KO) offered himself the first victory before the end of his career by defeating Cristian Lopez Lozano (2-3) by stoppage at 1:05 of the 2nd round. . Fendero had no difficulty landing his powerful left throughout the fight, notably sending the Mexican to the floor in the first attack thanks to the latter. The fight ended when Lopez Lozano found himself against the cables and it seemed he could no longer protect himself.
