Geale vs Albert Undercard Results: Yannick Gets Abbreviated Win, Brunker Survives Hard Battle

Here are results from the undercard in Hobart, Tasmania, as we prepare for the IBF middleweight title fight between Daniel Geale and Eromosele Albert. The main event is still to come, so join us in the live thread for the round-by-round coverage.

• Joel Brunker UD-8 Reynaldo Belandres: This was a really good fight and gave us a good look at Brunker (20-0, 13 KO), who stayed undefeated but really hard to earn it. I like Brunker's offensive potential a good amount. He digs to the body nicely and puts punches together fine, but defensively there are still a lot of flaws, and he seems easy to draw into a firefight, too. Belandres (14-3-2, 9 KO) cut Brunker early in the fight, and had his moment, but lost on fair scores of 77-75, 78-75 and 78-74.
• Serge Yannick TKO-2 Jamie Pittman: Right when this was getting good in the second round, Yannick landed a solid right hand that didn't appear to really hurt Pittman, but did open a bad cut over his left eye, which stopped the fight. Hopefully these two will rematch. It's not like Yannick is really ready for something bigger, and this looked like it could be a good style matchup with the taste we got. Yannick is now 14-1 (7 KO), while Pittman unfortunately drops to 21-3 (8 KO).
• Mostyn Niemann TKO-2 Rhys King: Absolute nothing fight, total mismatch in the cruiserweight division. Niemann (5-0, 4 KO) looked like a boxer, while King (5-3, 2 KO), well, didn't.
• Steve Maxwell UD-6 John Akauola: A spirited welterweight fight, this one, but Maxwell just overall too good and too strong, winning on scores of 59-53, 59-54 and 58-55. Maxwell improves to 10-5 (6 KO), while Akauola falls to 4-6-2 (0 KO).
• Steve Lovett TKO-2 Gary Brown: These two were at a catchweight north of the light heavyweight limit. Brown had just one career fight coming in, compared to Lovett's three, but the difference in class was much bigger than that. The KO at 1:42 of the second round was one of the nastiest of the year, with Lovett (4-0, 4 KO) knocking Brown out standing with a thudding left hook, followed by a couple more punches that landed hard and clean before Brown (1-1, 0 KO) slowly fell to the mat, where he sat up on instinct. Luckily, he looked relatively fine after that and left under his own power.