(Quebec) Adopted Montrealer Christian Mbilli retained his WBO Continental Americas and WBA International super middleweight championship belts with a unanimous decision victory over Ukrainian Sergiy Derevyanchenko in the final of the Eye of the Tiger Management gala Saturday night at the Videotron Centre.
Judge Efrain Lebron returned a score of 100-90 in favor of Mbilli, Pasquale Procopio gave a final score of 98-92 in favor of Mbilli while Steven Adrian Wesfeld gave a score of 99-91 in favor of the adopted Montrealer.
Mbilli therefore deserved a 28e victory in as many professional outings, but failed to add a 24e victory before the career limit, against Derevyanchenko (15-6, 10 KO) who has never been beaten by knockout since the start of his career.
Mbilli was particularly incisive from the seventh round onwards, regularly hitting his rival with combinations to the body and face.
After a relatively typical first round, marked by caution, but during which he was the most effective, Mbilli had some very good moments halfway through the second round.
With Derevyanchenko in a potentially dangerous position in one of the corners, Mbilli delivered a solid left-right combination that rocked his opponent and got the crowd reacting.
Mbilli kept the pressure on until the end of the second assault, but the Ukrainian showed a good level of resistance.
But gradually, towards the middle of the fight, it became noticeable that Drevyanchenko was barely using his left hand.
This did not prevent him from having some very good moments during the first half of the seventh round, before Mbilli turned the tide and in turn delivered some good blows to his rival in what was the best round of the fight.
Mbilli managed to maintain his pace in the eighth round, which he easily dominated, as did the ninth round.