Rob Brant stops Khasan Baysangurov in Round 11

Rob Brant put on a show in front of his home fans in Minnesota, stopping Khasan Baysangurov in Round 11 of ESPN’s main event. The official stoppage came at 1:42 of Round 11 in a fight that Brant was largely dominating from start to finish.

Brant came out and set a furious pace in this fight, averaging 77 punches per round while not giving Baysangurov a second to think or an inch to breath — just lighting him up with punches from the opening bell. You could tell that Baysangurov wasn’t really prepared to deal with the kind of pace Brant was setting, and Brant used that to his advantage.

In the second round Brant hit Baysangurov with a clean shot that put him down. Baysangurov would beat the count but was bleeding heavily from his nose, which would be a problem he’d have to deal with for the remainder of the fight.

By the later rounds Brant was still mostly cruising by beating Baysangurov to the punch, and then in the 11th Brant finally broke him down with an assault that made Baysangurov collapse to the canvas. Baysangurov would get back up and ask to continue, but another prompt set of punches from Brant forced the referee to step in and stop the fight.

In the post-fight interview Brant (25-1, 17 KOs), who maintains the WBA’s secondary world title, says that he considers Canelo Alvarez to be the real champion at 160lbs, and that’s a fight he eventually wants to work towards. Meanwhile Baysangurov (17-1, 7 KOs) takes his first loss and has to go back home to lick his wounds.

Final CompuBox stats had Brant outlanding Baysangurov 227-96 in total punches.