Despite a vocal portion of the crowd in Allentown, Pennsylvania supporting his opponent, Gary Russell Jr. managed to defend his featherweight title once again.
In the main event of a Showtime Championship Boxing card from Allentown, Russell was able to outpoint mandatory challenger Tugstsogt Nyambayar to retain the WBC title. Russell won the fight by unanimous decision with scores of 116-112, 117-111 and 118-110.
Russell utilized his hand speed and ring IQ to avoid getting tagged with any big punches early in the fight. Nyambayar failed to capitalize on getting any meaningful offense going in the first few rounds, but did manage to go on a rally in the last few rounds, starting with a combination of punches in the 10th round. But at that point, Russell was comfortably ahead on the scorecards and on his way to another title defense.
This is the first time Russell has fought since May 2019 and for now, his streak of fighting once a year since 2015 continues to stay intact, but he does have big plans for his fight future. After the fight, Russell said he wanted a fight against Leo Santa Cruz and contemplated moving up in weight.
The co-main event saw Guillermo Rigondeaux move down in weight and score a split decision victory against Liborio Solis to become the new WBA "Regular" bantamweight titleholder. The opening bout featured an all-action bout in which Jaime Arboleda defeated Jayson Velez by split decision.
Below are the full results of the February 9 Showtime Championship Boxing main card:
- Gary Russell Jr. defeated Tugstsogt Nyambayar by unanimous decision (116-112, 117-111, 118-110) to retain his WBC Featherweight title
- Guillermo Rigondeaux defeated Liborio Solis by split decision (115-112, 112-115, 116-111) to win the WBA “Regular” Bantamweight title
- Jaime Arboleda defeated Jayson Velez by split decision (112-115, 114-113, 114-113) in a WBA Super Featherweight title eliminator
