#13 IBF Tony Harrison (24-1, 20 KOs) gave #8 IBF Sergey Rabchenko (27-2, 20 KOs) a boxing lesson tonight in totally outclassing him and stopping him in the 9th round on Saturday night in their IBF junior middleweight title eliminator at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Harrison stunned the 30-year-old Rabchenko with a right hand to the head in the 9th. Harrison then followed up with another right to put Rabchenko on the canvas. A badly hurt Rabchenko got up at the count of nine, but referee Arthur Mercante Jr. halted the fight at 1:18 of the round. Harrison looked like Floyd Mayweather Jr. at times with the way that he circled the ring, jabbing and avoiding the slow attacks from Rabchenko. Harrison can shine when fighting slow guys like Rabchenko. He was made to order for Harrison tonight.
The 6’1″ Harrison used his jab to land shots all night long. He would circle the ring and tag the slow moving Rabchenko. It was not a good effort from Rabchenko, because he did a poor job of cutting off the ring and attacking Harrison in a hard enough manner to make it a competitive fight. When Rabechenko would attack Harrison in an energetic manner, he was able to land, but for some reason, he just was not willing to walk through the shots that he had to him to land his own bombs.
Harrison is now the IBF mandatory for IBF junior middleweight champion Jermall Charlo. That would be a tough fight for Harrison, because Charlo is big puncher and he’ll give him problems. Harrison was recently beaten by Willie Nelson by a 9th round TKO last year in July. If a guy like Nelson was able to stop Harrison, then you’ve got to wonder what an even bigger puncher like Charlo will do to him.
