3 best wins for Murodjon Akhmadaliev

In just his eighth fight, Akhmadaliev took on the unified super-bantamweight champion Danny Roman for his WBA and IBF titles – and left Miami with the belts. Roman was on a seven-year unbeaten run and many suggested it was simply too early for the 7-0 southpaw in his first ever 12-rounder against the 30-fight veteran champion.

But it was a result not without its controversy as MJ nicked it on a split with Carlos Sucre and Nelson Vazquez both scoring him a 115-113 winner while Rodolfo Aguilar had it the other way by the same score. It was a fight that could have gone either way but it was MJ who took the titles to become Uzbekistan’s first ever unified champion.

After winning the belts from Roman, the new world champion had to wait 15 months before he could make his first defence, with 27-3 Japanese Ryosuke Iwasa selected as the opponent for the big homecoming in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. And, on a card stacked with his compatriots like Israil Madrimov and Shakhram Giyasov, the champion shone, stopping his challenger halfway through the fifth. Akhmadaliev pressed the issue from the opening bell but really turned the screw in the fifth, launching a 90-second barrage that referee Yury Koptsev responded to by stepping in.

Mexican southpaw Kevin Gonzalez was ranked at No.3 with the WBO and was undefeated when he arrived in Glendale, Arizona to take on MJ, knowing that a victory would change his life. But it was near enough one-way traffic as the Uzbek, who lost his title to Marlon Tapales in his previous fight, was simply too good. In the sixth, a big left uppercut floored Gonzalez for the first time.

He was down once more before the round was out but managed to hold on until the eighth. But with a little over 30 seconds left of the round, he walked onto another left uppercut and went down for a third time. Again he was allowed to continue but one more attack from MJ was enough to convince referee Mark Calo-oy to wave it off.