Worldwide Saturday Results: Rosas upsets Nongqayi; Sartison defeates Gevor; Bika DQed

Hamburg, Germany

• Sebastian Zbik won a decision over Jorge Sebastian Heiland on scores of 117-111 (twice) and 116-111. Alexey Sukachev of BoxingScene.com describes the decision as "scandalous."
• In a pretty darn good fight, Dimitri Sartison beat Khoren Gevor in a 12 round unanimous decision.  Both fighters played to their strengths.  The much shorter Gevor, who belongs at middleweight, did a lot of lunging inside and throwing lots of hook combinations to the body.  Sartison tried more to fight at a distance and catch Gevor as he was coming inside.  However, after Sartison buzzed Gevor in the fourth, both fighters came alive and started to mix things up a few times a round.  Like many of Gevor's fights, his fate would be decided by whether the judges prefer his body attack and volume punching or his opponent's harder, more crisp punching.  I believe the final scores were 115-112, 117-110 and 117-109, all in favor of Sartison.  Sartison looks like he's improving overall, and before long, he may overtake guys like Librado Andrade and Robert Stieglitz in the super middleweight top 10. 
  
• Former super middleweight titlist Karoly Balzsay recovered from his recent streak of losses with a win over Aziz Daari.  Balzsay looked hesitant to throw punches in the first round, but he was able to rock Daari pretty much whenever he opened up a bit, including a knockdown in the second. Balzsay finished him in the fifth with a straight left that literally lifted Daari off his feet in a highlight reel knockout.  Daari came into the fight having been knocked out 9 times, so it was no great shakes, but maybe this will be a confidence builder. 
  
• Alexander Dimitrenko knocked out Yaroslav Zavorotnyy in the fifth round to win the vacant European heavyweight title. 
• Juan Carlos Gomez won a unanimous decision over journeyman Zack Page.

Las Vegas, Nevada

• Jean Paul Mendy beat Sakio Bika when Bika uppercutted Mendy when he was down in the first round.  Bika came right out and blitzed Mendy and was basically destroying the guy.  Mendy was knocked down with about a minute left in the round, and like a replay of Abraham-Dirrell, Bika landed a big uppercut while Mendy was on his knees, knocking him out cold.  The winner of the fight was supposed to become the mandatory for Lucian Bute, but I suspect the IBF will order a rematch.
• George Groves scored an eighth round technical knockout Alfredo Contreras.  Groves was landing big shots at will, albeit one at a time, but with a minute left in the fight, there wasn't any reason to not let it go the distance.  To provide a frame of reference, David Lemieux knocked Contreras out in two rounds.  
• Frankie Gomez and Seth Mitchell both scored quick first round knockouts.  Gomez was facing a guy who was a late replacement and was 3-2 from Minnesota, so that was expected.  Mitchell faced Derek Bryant, who had never been knocked out before the 6th previously, and who was once a decent heavyweight prospect himself, so that win is a bit more impressive.
  

Tepic, Mexico

• In a phonebooth war, Juan Alberto Rosas applied constant pressure to Simphiwe Nongqayi and was able to wear him down, earning a sixth round corner stoppage after Nongqayi was knocked down by a body shot.  Rosas, whose record improved to 32-5, wins the IBF super flyweight title.  His mandatory will be Rodrigo Guerrero, who beat Rosas by split decision a couple years back
• Six years ago it would have been a great fight, but instead we got a severely faded version of Jorge Arce fighting a completely shot version of Martin Castillo in a sideshow fight between two of the better Mexican fighters of the past decade.  With a few seconds left in the first round, Arce stopped Castillo on a body shot, who wasn't able to beat the count of ten. 

Pasig City, Philippines

• 22-year-old Filipino Sylvester "Stallone" Lopez stopped Thai veteran Wandee Singwancha in the second round. It's not really as big of an upset as it might appear with the records, since Singwancha (63-12-1, 15 KO) has lost to pretty much everyone he's ever faced that was any good, with only the rare decent win (Juanito Rubillar, for one) on his sheet. Lopez is now 14-2-1 (10).
  

Minsk, Belarus

• Avantil Khurtsidze forced Sergei Khomitski to quit on his stool after the sixth round.  I'm still curious how a 5'4" modern middleweight can look against decent competition.