At the Fort Bend Epicenter in Rosenberg, Texas, we saw unification of the middleweight title as the WBO middleweight champion, Janibek “Qazaq Style” Alimkhanuly, who holds an unbeaten record of 15-0 with 10 knockouts, stopped Vincenzo Gualtieri, whose record stood at 21-1-1 with 7 knockouts, as Alimkhanuly won Gualtieri's IBF middleweight title in the process.
The bout which saw a one-sided affair as the punch stats paint a perfect picture with Alimkhanuly landing 82 out of his 243 punches compared to Gualtieri who landed 22 out of 85 punches. The beating saw Alimkhanuly land merely a couple of punches less than the punches thrown by his opponent in total.
Janibek demonstrated his power and precision, as Gualtieri quickly stopped fighting back early on. By the fourth round, Gualtieri's left eye was looking bad, indicating the toll of Janibek's assault on him.
It would only get worse. The fifth round saw Janibek send Gualtieri reeling with an uppercut.
The halt to the contest came in the sixth round as Janibek's aggressive approach saw Gualtieri rocked once again, and at 1:25 of the round the referee David Fields. After the fight, Janibek called to unify the rest of the division, as the remaining champions have been rather inactive as WBC middleweight champion, Jermall Charlo is rumored to return on November 25th but hasn't fought for two years, Carlos Adames is the WBC champion-in-recess, and the WBA middleweight champion, Erislandy Lara, hasn't fought since May 2022.
The middleweight division is in a terrible way as of late, but Janibek appears to be a fighter who might be capable of saving it. On this evening, he at least, unified two world titles, and is looking to be the fighter actively looking for the most interesting fights in the division.
