Sergey Lipinets Scored Dominant TKO In Showtime Main Event

Even though he only took the fight on 5 days notice, former junior welterweight world champion Sergey Lipinets was ready for fellow veteran Omar Figueroa, Jr. and dismantled him for an eighth round TKO win in the Showtime Boxing PBC main event Saturday night.

Fighting at the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida, Lipinets was the fresher harder puncher from the jump, battering Figueroa from beginning to end for his victory.

.@unionsamurai is pouring it on in round 6 👀#FigueroaLipinets pic.twitter.com/hPBf1qEANW

— SHOWTIME Boxing (@ShowtimeBoxing) August 21, 2022

The fighters fought at close quarters the entire way but Lipinets, now 17-2-1, repeatedly got the better of Figueroa especially with hard overhand rights. He dropped the Texan with one of those in the second round, which established his dominance even more. As the fight wore on through the middle rounds, it became more obvious that Lipinets was going to either win by stoppage or lopsided decision. This was, because Figueroa, now 28-3-1, simply did not have a big enough punch to turn the fight in his favor.

Lipinets told Showtime in the ring through an interpreter after the fight that he knew the overhand right would be successful from having watched previous Figueroa bouts.

To reinforce how one sided it was: Lipinets landed 164 of 351 power shots according to Showtime’s stats to just 40 of 330 for Figueroa.

Figueroa was coming off over a year layoff and has only had one fight in the last 3 years battling mental health issues and also contractual issues outside of the ring. He was originally supposed to have fought Adrien Broner in Saturday main event. But, Broner elected to withdraw citing his own mental health struggles.

Lipinets, who was to have been on the undercard Saturday, was also coming off of a loss, as he had been beaten by welterweight rising contender Jaron “Boots” Ennis by KO his last bout. But, he certainly was impressive Saturday night in Florida and with the win will likely get another big opportunity down the road in the 140 or 147 lb. division.

Earlier in the co-feature bout, Dominican Albert Puello, 21-0, 10 KOS, scored a split decision win over Batyr Akhmedov to capture the vacant WBA jr. welterweight title. Despite being outworked late in the fight by Akhmedov, Puello got the nod 117-111 on two cards, while the third scored it for Akhmedov 115-113.