Art Hovhannisyan nails Miguel Acosta via split decision to defend streak – Boxing news
Art Hovhannisyan, the surging Armenian super featherweight, successfully defended his undefeated streak by collecting the biggest win of his career over veteran Miguel Acosta, the former WBA World lightweight champion, via split decision in a 10-round bout
held on July 20, 2012.
The duo headlined the pay-per-view organised and promoted by Gary Shaw of Gary Shaw Productions. The event was televised live from Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez, California, United States and was broadcasted as Showtime’s weekly Friday night special edition.
In addition to the above bout, the jam-packed Chumash Casino also witnessed Roman Morales take on Alexis Santiago in an eight-round non-title super bantamweight bout, co-headlining the fight card.
Despite getting knocked down once by the experienced Venezuelan pounder, Art did not lose hope at all and kept on pummelling the former world champion. The duo literally battered each other and threw almost 1000 jabs collectively.
Art, 30, successfully set the pace of the bout in the first round. In the final seconds of the first round, the Armenian proud connected a big right hand that flattened Miguel on the ring floor.
During the second round, it was Acosta who made a comeback with his own hefty jabs eventually kneeling down Art to score a knockdown. From third round and onwards, Miguel adopted a cautious stance and started to interpret Art’s jab-timings.
Acosta connected higher number of jabs, 124 to be specific, most of them landing at Art’s face. Hovhannisyan did not lose his senses at all and in the ninth round, after realising that Acosta has worn out, moved in for the kill and launched a barrage of
fists that pounded and battered the Venezuelan ‘Aguacerito’.
It was most probably the last 10th round action that aided Art in collecting the biggest win of his career by collecting 95-93 on two cards and 92-96 on the remaining one. After the impressive career-boosting win, Art while sharing his thoughts stated, “I
wanted to end the fight with one punch. I was not hurt by the knockdown. It was a flash knockdown. Every round I was getting stronger and stronger. I could have worked better, but I know I won the fight and I gave the fans a good performance.”
The unfortunate Acosta who has collected his second consecutive loss and third in a total of five bouts, stated, “I’m very sure I won this fight. Although he caught me in the first round, I landed more punches throughout the fight. After he knocked me down,
I got my confidence back little by little with each round. I knew my conditioning was good and it would carry me into the fight.”
Art has collected his 15th win in a total of 17 bouts whereas Miguel has received his sixth career loss in a total of 37 bouts.
Tags: