The Boxing Diary

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Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Pulev knocks out Dinu, kisses a reporter after an interview

Kubrat Pulev stepped up his offense after suffering an ugly cut on the side of his left eye to stop Bogdan Dinu in the seventh round at The Hangar, Costa Mesa, on Saturday night.

The official time of the stoppage was at the 2:40 mark in the seventh round.

Pulev (27-1, 14 KO) was horribly cut by a huge right hand from Dinu in the fourth round.

In the first three rounds, Pulev was taking his time with his offense as he sizes up Dinu. The cut, Pulev got in the fourth round causes the alarm. If the fight will be stopped due to the cut, it will be in favor of the challenger as the cut was caused by a punch.

In the fifth round, Pulev stepped up his offense walking down Dinu with his jab, right-hand combination.

In the seventh round, Pulev scored a knockdown but eventually hit Dinu while he's down. The referee ruled the knockdown as a legitimate knockdown, but deducted a point for hitting Dinu while down on the floor.

The fight went on and Dinu was down again. He barely beat the count. He went up at the count of nine. The referee allowed the fight to continue. At the final minute of round seven, Dinu was down again and the referee had seen enough and stop the fight.

To Dinu's credit, he was more than a willing challenger. Dinu (18-2, 14 KOs) just didn't came to fight. He came in to win. His efforts just fell short.

The knockout victory and a kiss.

With the victory, Pulev still in the mix at the heavyweight division. He would probably still got a shot at heavyweight top names, Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder. Note that the only loss of Pulev was with Wladimir Klitschko and that was in 2014.

After the fight, Pulev was interviewed by Las Vegas Sports Daily reporter, Jennifer Ravalo. Ravalo's last question was Pulev feels he deserves a shot at Tyson Fury. To the surprise of Ravalo, Pulev kissed her on the lips without any cue or whatsoever after he answered the question with a resounding yes. Pulev, then says thank you and walks away from the camera, leaving Ravalo in disbelief.

In a tweet, Ravalo was asked if she has something to say or add regarding the kiss. She says, "Lil embarrassing. Strange".