Alex Besputin & Radzhab Butaev Clash in World Title Welterweight Fight
The time has come for Matchroom to host their annually show in the wonderful city Monte-Carlo. The headliner and the fight of the night is for the vacant WBA Welterweight World title between two relatively inexperienced fighters, Radzhab ‘The Python’ Butaev and Alexander Besputin. Both fighters hold similar professional records with Butaev (13-0-0) and Besputin (12-0-0) and they both have 9 KO victories to their name. Butaev is ranked number 2 with the WBA and Besputin is ranked number 1.
This is an all Russian affair which has been on the cards for some time now. They are both taking a huge step up and what with both fighters based in the US, it is poised to be a thrilling encounter.
Alexander Besputin has an extensive amateur background with over 300 fights to his name and just goes into this fight as the slight favourite. Besputin is a training partner of arguably the best fighter on the planet, Lomachenko, it is not hard to see why Besputin is the slight favourite going on to this fight. As a match up, the fight has gone slightly under the radar and this may be down to the fact neither fighter are under the Matchroom banner. Eddie Hearn managed to get this fight on the Monaco show and on Sky Sports due to the fight going to purse bids.
The winner of this fight will have his sights set on fighting other top names in the division such as Danny Garcia, Jessie Vargas and the unbeaten Kudratillo Abdukakhorov. The man they all want to face is no doubt Errol Spence Jr who holds the WBC and the IBF titles. Errol has expressed his desire in unifying the division so the winner will certainly be on his hit list.
The undercard to this main event consists of Hughie Fury who fights Pavel Sour, Joe Cordina against Enrico Tinoco, Zhilei Zhang who fights Andriy Rudenko and finally Cecilia Braekhus against Victoria Bustos.
Hughie Fury will be looking to put his recent points decision defeat against Povetkin behind him whilst Joe Cordina drops down a weight class to fight for the WBA Continental Super-Featherweight Title against a man who most recently picked up a surprise victory against Jordan Gill. The unbeaten heavyweight from China, Zhilei Zhang will be looking to take his professional record to 21 fights, 21 victories. Finally, the IBF, WBA, WBO, WBC Welterweight Chanpion Cecilia Braekhus will be defending all of her belts against a previous opponent of Katie Taylor.