Keith Thurman may have been the big winner on the January 26 PBC on Fox card from Brooklyn, two other boxers got one step closer to getting their respective shots at a world title someday.
Tugstsogt Nyambayar and Adam Kownacki picked up victories in their respective fights on the undercard of the Fox-televised event. Nyambayar defeated Claudio Marrero in a very competitive fight by unanimous decision (114-113, 115-112, 116-111).
With the win over Marrero, Nyambayar, who improves his pro record to 11-0, now becomes the mandatory challenger to the WBC featherweight title, currently being held by Gary Russell Jr. The fight was recently turned into a title eliminator as the WBC failed to get Russell and WBA champion Leo Santa Cruz, who also holds the WBC Diamond belt, into a title unification.
Nyambayar and Marrero landed a near identical amount of punches throughout the fight (119 to 114 in favor of Marrero), which opened the event. Marrero was deducted a point in the 10th round for hitting after a break.
In the co-main event, Kownacki made very quick work of former world title challenger Gerald Washington, stopping him in the second round. Kownacki started the fight impressively and was active throughout in the short skirmish, landing 46 punches in the first round alone.
Kownacki then followed it up with a right hand in the second round that dropped Washington to the canvas. Washington was slow to get up, but once he beat the referee's count, Kownacki went to work and stopped him just seconds after the knockdown. Kownacki, who improves his record to 19-0, in the top 10 in both the WBC and IBF heavyweight rankings.
