Mumbai: It wasn`t an outing to remember for Venky`s Mumbai Fighters as they lost 0-5 to hosts Dynamo Moscow in their first away match and second Group A encounter held at the Sukharev Sports Complex in Perm, Russia on Friday.
None of the five Fighters` boxers could manage to win a bout as the hosts made sure the home advantage worked in their favour.
While lightweight Siddharth Varma showed a lot of exuberance in his approach, heavyweight boxer Trent Rawlins suffered a fourth round knockout in the last match of the night.
In the first bout of the night, Jitender Kumar lost to 2011 World Championship bronze medallist Anvar Yunusov. The two started slow but Yunusov, showing his experience on the big stage, lasted longer in the five-round bout to win on unanimous decision.
The southpaw from Tajikistan combined his punches well to punish a tired Jitender round to round.
At the end of the match, Anvar won the bout 3-0 on points with score reading 49-46, 50-45, 49-46.
Lightweight boxer Siddharth Varma entered the arena in some style. The Pune lad was a bundle of energy and translated the same in the ring. He surprised his Dynamo Moscow counterpart Eduard Husainov with a flurry of punches. But as the match progressed, Husainov displayed some nice combinations to counter Siddharth`s exuberance. The 23-year old Russian eventually won the bout 3-0 on points.
With the pressure to keep the Fighters in the match, middleweight boxer Mandeep Jangra entered the ring facing Maxim Gazizov. But Gazizov, nine years senior to Jangra, got control from there on and eventually sealed the deal for the hosts. At the end of the match, the score read 49-45, 49-45-49-45 in the favour of Moscow as the Russian won 3-0 on points.
It was then left for light heavyweight Marko Calic to give the visitors a chance to earn a point if Fighters could seal a 2-3 result. But that too wasn`t to be. The Croat was outpunched by his Russian opponent Eduard Yakushev. The 23-year old pugilist from the home team made sure his jabs opened up the Croat`s defence and didn`t allow Mumbai franchise to even take home a point.
The result of the light heavyweight went in favour of home team with a score of 50-45, 50-45, 50-45 as Yakushev won 3-0 on points.
The heavyweight bout just added salt to Mumbai Fighters` wound as Rawlins got knocked out in the fourth round by 2010 World University champion Arslanbek Makhmudov.
PTI
First Published: Friday, November 18, 2011, 22:50