So much for making a statement.
Chris Eubank Jr. promised fireworks for his American debut against Matvey Korobov, but he barely had time to even fight, thanks to a freak accident. Barely 30 seconds into Round 2, Korobov threw a left hand and immediately motioned at referee Steve Willis for a timeout as he gestured at his left shoulder. After a brief deliberation in the corner with the ring doctor, Willis called off the fight.
Eubank (29-2, 22 knockouts) won by technical knockout on the undercard of the Jermall Charlo vs. Dennis Hogan main event at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The official time of the stoppage was 2:26 of the second round. Ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr. cited the cause as a “left shoulder injury.”
“I feel like I was just about to start getting my swagger,” said Eubank, who simply shrugged at the crowd. “He just turned around and stopped. I was going to go jump on him. I guess something happened with his shoulder.
“I mean, there’s nothing to take from the fight. I threw like three or four punches. I was just warming up.”
The loss marks the third straight tough outcome for Korobov (28-3-1, 14 KOs), whose last two fights included a draw with Immanuel Aleem and decision loss to Jermall Charlo.
“I was trying to throw the left hand straight, and I just felt the muscle immediately, like I pulled it,” Korobov said. “It was a lot of pain right away. I couldn’t fight with just one arm, especially being a southpaw.”
Earlier, Ryosuke Iwasa dropped Marlon Tapales twice en route to an 11th-round stoppage in a scheduled 12-round junior featherweight bout.
The two southpaws traded left hands all fight long, but Tapales was sloppy, both on defense and offense. Iwasa (27-3, 17 KOs), from Kashiwa, Japan, was a bit more accurate and patient, biding his time before decking Tapales (33-3, 16 KOs) with a straight left in the 11th round. The Filipino was able to get up, but when referee Shada Murdaugh motioned him to come forward, Tapales momentarily stumbled, forcing Murdaugh to end the fight at 1:09.
In Round 3, a clash of heads caused Tapales to touch the canvas. Referee Murdaugh ruled it a knockdown. Thereafter a visible bruise appeared on Tapales’ right cheek.
Toward the end, Tapales began to show signs that he was wilting. In Round 8, Tapales landed his best punch of the fight, a crunching right hook that drew oohs from a relatively sparse crowd. But Iwasa took the punch well and came back to land his own combinations. Winded, Tapales retreated to the ropes as Iwasa began teeing off on him for the rest of the round. Tapales trudged back to his corner, as if already defeated.
Iwasa should be next in line to face the winner of the not-yet-finalized junior lightweight title fight between Danny Roman and Murodjon Ahkmadeliev.