Bethlehem, PA (August 9th, 2014) Saturday night at the Sands Casino and Resort in Bethlehem, PA, Main Events, along with Peltz Boxing hosted a triple header card which was headlined by rising heavyweight, Vyacheslav “Czar” Glazkov (17-0-1, 11 KOs) who faced sport veteran Derric Rossy (29-8, 14 KOs) in a 10 round Heavyweight bout. Glazkov, who recently immigrated to Florida to escape the events going on in Ukraine is no stranger to the Sands, as he is coming off by far the biggest win of his career when he defeated Tomasz Adamek here this past March 15th. Rossy, who is of Medford, New York is coming off a upset win him himself. He traveled to Canada and defeated Joey Hanks by majority Decision on June 16th of this year.
In the other two bouts, Joseph Parker opened up the televised portion of the card by facing Keith Thompson in a 6 round Heavyweight bout. The co-main event featured Robert Berridge facing off against Vasily Lepikhin in a 12 round heavyweight bout for the PABA and WBO Oriental Lt. Heavyweight title.
Parker, who is coming all the way from Auckland, New Zealand started off really good, being the better boxer, using his jab and landing it effectively on Thompson. Parker landed some good body shots in the opening round which seemed to back Thompson up, who had no answer for anything Parker was throwing. Parker made very easy work of Thompson, as he bullied him throughout the first 3 rounds and dropping him in the 3rd after landing a solid uppercut. Thompson got up to beat the count but was merely helpless after that, taking a barrage of punches before going down again prompting the referee to call a stop to the fight. Parker, now (10-0, 9 KOs) looked very impressive in stopping Thompson (7-3, 4 KOs), scoring his 9th stoppage in his 10th professional fight.
In the co-main event, Robert “The Butcher” Berridge, who is also hailing from New Zealand, took on Vasily “The Professor” Lepikin who comes from Russian in a 12 round attraction for the PABA and WBO Oriental Lt. Heavyweight titles. Both guys showed some good stuff in the 1st round , but Russia’s Lepikhin looked a lot more tactical as he kept distant using his jab to set up his shots, also landing a hard body shot during the closing moments of the 1st. Lepikhin kept executing his game plan well as he dropped Berridge in the final seconds of the 2nd round from a oddly thrown uppercut. Berridge survived and was ultimately saved by the bell. That didn’t stop Lepikhin who proceeded to hurt Berridge in the 3rd. Nearly dropping the defending champion twice in the first half of the round. By the 5th round it became pretty clear that Berridge was not butchering anything as Lepikhin dropped him twice in the opening seconds. After surviving the 2nd knockdown, Lepikhin came full force at Berridge which caused referee Gary Rosato to stop the fight at 1:04 of the round. Lepikhin, now becoming the PABA and WBO Oriental Lt. Heavyweight Champion and scoring his 9th stoppage keeping his unblemished record.
Finally in the main event, No.2 ranked by the IBF heavyweight Vyacheslav Glazkov took on journeyman Derric Rossy in a 10 round heavyweight bout. Rossy came out showing that he was not going to be a push over, standing and trading with Glazkov. Both guys getting in their punches but nothing effective really landing. Both fighters proceeded to land hard shots in the 2nd round, Rossy using his jab to keep the forward coming Glazkov off of him. Rossy really held his ground in the 1st two, proving that he is much more than a walk in the park. In the 3rd round Rossy caught Glazkov with a thunderous right uppercut that Glazkov seemed to take well. Later in the fight Rossy caught Glazkov with the same kind of uppercut, this time to the body. Glazkov returned the favor landing a hard over hand right right after. Rossy took Glazkov’s punches well and held his own. Glazkov turned up the heat in the 5th when he landed a good right cross on Rossy, the supposed journeyman then fired back some blows of his own backing Glazkov up. Rossy and Glazkov continued to trade with each other for the next 2 rounds, as the championship rounds drew near. In the 8th, Glazkov hit Rossy with what looked to be an unintentional blow to the back of the head, referee Steve Smoger made aware of it. In the closing seconds of the 9th round, Glazkov caught Rossy with 3 solid shots back to back that nearly put a stop to Rossy’s on coming attack. Rossy went out on his shield in the 10th and final round, taking all of Glazkov’s punches. Clearly tired after going 9 action packed rounds with the Ukraine native, Rossy would not go down, as Glazkov pounded away looking to close the show strong. The two fought an exciting, action packed fight that resulted in a majority decision win for Glazkov who is now (18-0-1, 11 KOs), as the judges scored the fight 95-95 even, 96-94 and 98-92 in his favor.
