By Jeff Zimmerman at ringside
In a battle of undefeated welterweights on the Spence-Ugas undercard, WBA regular welterweight champion Radzhab Butaev (14-1, 11 KOs) from Russia went toe-to-toe with Lithuanian Eimantas Stanionis (14-0, 9 KOs) over twelve hotly contested rounds. Stanionis came away with the split decision win in a fight that was physical from the opening bell to the very end. Butaev was deducted a point in the eleventh round by referee Rafael Ramos for holding Stanionis head down, but fortunately it did not impact the scores. The scores read 114-113 for Butaev and 116-111 and 117-110 for Stanionis.
Butaev, who earned the title when he stopped Jamal James in the ninth round of their fight in October 2021. Stanionis took on former light welterweight challenger Thomas Dulorme and former welterweight champ Luis Collazo in his last two fights. He earned a unanimous decision versus Dulorme and had a no contest against Collazo due to an accidental clash of heads.
Butaev did great work to the body as Stanionis was focused on the head as neither fighter gave an inch as most of the fight was fought in the center of the ring. The fight got a little chippy in the late rounds as Referee Ramos warned Butaev several times, before finally deducting the point in round eleven. Stanionis out punched Buaev by a wide margin in jabs and power punches according to SHO Stats. Stanionis leaves Texas as the new WBA regular welterweight champion with the hard-earned win.
I was wrong about who was going to win this fight. I don’t think I’m going to be wrong about it being fight of the night though. That was a helluva fight.
Who’s the absolute moron thinking this should not be on the main ppv card!?
If I had know it wasn’t going to be shown I wouldn’t have bought the PPV.
Seems like they went only Mexican fighters on pay per view undercard. Undercard sucked
Crap rolls uphill, so it would have to be Al Haymon who left this fight off the PPV. I can’t believe the Valenzuela mismatched was actually aired; he outweighed his opponent by nearly 5 lbs!
Ray Flores
announcing may as well have included a marriage proposal to Staniosis.
That’s the fight who was going to make me buy the PPV..
I agree. Why wasn’t this shown?? Irritating. In round 2 of the Cruz Gamboa fight. Going just as predicted. Bunch of shot fighters getting their boots smoked.
This card so far is helping to get out of the game some good names in boxing that were suspiciously shot. Hope they think in retirement after being grossly defeated.
Note: I am watching the whole card for free
Great. Post round by round updates for us.
Fight just stopped, Ugas eye was a mess, but he fought like a lion and staggered Spence in round 7 I guess
Just a great fight, FOY candidate IMO. Spence face looks clean
Fight off the year: no. It was one sided I had Ugas winning 2 rds before the stoppage. It was a great job by Ej but Ugas did nothing to make Ej slow down.
Good for you. Who cares, Burucho. As long as your watching. All good
Jealously….
Bless Stanionis and Butaev because they are boxing’s true gladiators, and I hope they recover in good health.
I had it 6 rounds to 5 for B. And the 11th a draw. 114/113 for B.
Glad you weren’t judging.
Apparently one of the judges surprisingly agreed with you. 117-111 was a fair score.
Stanionis has a powerful jab and used it often in the early rounds. In the second half of the fight, he started throwing vicious body shots and staggered Butaev on several occasions. He abandoned his jab at times and I felt that was a mistake.
Stanionis looked to be the harder puncher and maintained his tight defense throughout the fight. I thought he clearly won the fight by at least 8-4 in rounds. Butaev gave as good as he got but Stanionis was just a bit better.
Stanionis looked like a battered fighter at the end but he does tend to bruise around the eyes. His looks didn’t detract from his excellent performance. I just didn’t agree with the one judge that gave the fight to Butaev. Great fight by both. Butaev could beat a lot of good fighters in the weight class. I hope both recover well because there are great fights ahead for both of them.
did not like the referee in this fight he kept butaev from throwing his punches took a point away also it was a good fight saw it for free on the pre fight program maybe they should fight again