From kickboxer to boxing world champion, Sergey Lipinets has reached the summit, but not without some minor controversy.
Lipinets defeated Akihiro Kondo to win the vacant IBF junior welterweight title on the Deontay Wilder vs. Bermane Stiverne 2 card and it opened up the Showtime Championship Boxing television card. Lipinets won the fight via unanimous decision (118-110, 117-111, 117-111) with the crowd heavily booing the decision. Fightful had scored the fight a 114-114 draw.
Below are the official round-by-round scoring from all three judges.
Despite the Barclays Center crowd believing the fight was a robbery, both Lipinets and Kondo had said the scorecards were fair and there is no controversy.
"I think the scorecards were accurate but it was a good fight. The head butt really impaired my vision and it led to me walking into some stupid shots. I'm happy with my performance. I'm just going to keep getting better from here. I'm ready to take any on challenge thrown my way," Lipinets said.
"It was a fair decision. He hit me with a lot of hard punches and I felt like I needed at least a knockdown in the last round," Kondo said.
Lipinets and Kondo battered each other through the duration of the 12 rounds. Both men were bloodied numerous times with Lipinets suffering a cut on his forehead and Kondo bleeding from the nose. According to CompuBox statistics, Lipinets landed 173 of 621 punches (28 percent) and Kondo connected with 140 of 567 (25 percent).
After Lipinets ended a successful kickboxing career, he took up professional boxing in 2014, winning all 13 fights, including this latest one.
The IBF title became vacant after Terence Crawford unified all four major world titles at 140 pounds back in August. The IBF then ordered Lipinets, then the IBF's mandatory challenger, and Kondo, the highest-ranked available contender at the time.
