Today in Mecklenburg Germany, Sebastian Sylvester scored a tenth round TKO over Billy Lyell in a fight that Sylvester mostly dominated outside of a few rounds he took off.  While Lyell tried his best, Sylvester was immensely more accurate than the Youngstown native, and possessed much more power in his fists as well.  Through the fight, Lyell circled around, throwing lots of double jabs and light combinations, while Sylvester was able to counter with sharp hooks and uppercuts to the body and the occasional jab-cross combo that would snap Lyell's head back.  It was a gritty performance for Lyell and Sylvester didn't look to be his best, but the overpowered Lyell just didn't have much of a chance, and was getting more and more beaten up as the fight wore on.

With Sylvester stalking down Lyell and about to get him cornered early in the 10th round, trainer Jack Loew jumped onto the ring apron to stop the fight.  It was an odd time to stop the fight, as Lyell had never been hurt and was throwing back when the fight was stopped, but Loew knew that his light hitting fighter was hopelessly behind on the cards and had no chance of scoring the knockout, so he stopped the fight to keep Lyell from taking any more punishment.  In the post-fight interview, Lyell, who looked quite busted up by the time the fight was stopped, said he trusted Jack and thought he did the right thing, despite the odd timing.

Lyell really brought his best effort, but it just wasn't good enough.  While he did get a good win over John Duddy recently, this is still the same Billy Lyell we've seen getting steamrolled by the likes of James Kirkland and David Lopez.  He did as well as he could - he kept a high output, and tactically he fought the best fight that he could have, but he just didn't have the accuracy to land enough punches to take rounds, and he didn't have enough power to hurt Sylvester at all.  Kudos to Lyell for stepping in with a game performance on short notice.  He came to win, he just wasn't able to do it.

Sylvester moves to 33-3, while Lyell drops to 21-8.  Likely next for Sylvester is a mandatory defense against Roman Karmazin, who earned a title shot with his come from behind knockout of Dionisio Miranda earlier this month.

On the undercard, Robert Helenius continued his ascent, and Lamon Brewster continued his fall, with Helenius knocking out Brewster in the 8th round.  Kubrat Pulev, the Bulgarian heavyweight Olympian, won his fifth pro fight with a fourth round TKO of British veteran and former title challenger Matt Skelton.  Also, Karo Murat remained undefeated with a win over Sean Corbin.

Sorry, this is last-minute, so no fancy write-up this time.

Sebastian Sylvester is defending his middleweight title against Youngstown native and longtime Kelly Pavlik sparring partner Billy Lyell.

Pablo Navascues has failed a doping test in Germany, meaning that he's out of his January 30 IBF middleweight title shot against reigning titlist Sebastian Sylvester.

But Sylvester will defend the belt on that date. Instead of Navascues, American fringe contender and Jack Loew fighter Billy Lyell (21-7, 4 KO) will get the bump up to take his first crack at a major belt.

Lyell is best-known for taking the "0" off of John Duddy's record last year in one of the year's bigger upsets, at least as far as Duddy fans are concerned. While Sylvester is not exactly the strongest middleweight titleholder in history (and is the weakest out there right now), he still should be a very heavy favorite against Lyell, a punchless guy coming in on short notice.

Still, Lyell could be a spoiler here. He's a bit taller than Sylvester and doesn't have bad losses. He's got Ls to Vanes Martirosyan, the continually ignored and underrated David Lopez, James Kirkland, Charles Whittaker, and a debatable loss to Yori Boy Campas. Add in two early career losses, and he's probably better than his record.

But he also has no credible wins outside of Duddy, and since then he's taken two gimme fights against Chris Overbey and Chris Gray.

This will also be Lyell's first fight outside of the United States.