Branislav Malinovic from Bosnia & Herzegovina scored the biggest victory of his career on Saturday, November 11, and is the new World Boxing Federation (WBF) International Middleweight champion.
In Montceau-Les-Mines, France, 28-year-old Malinovic impressively edged local hero Mickael Lacombe by split decision after ten hard rounds to win the vacant title.
The fight started at a high pace with both boxers trading, toe-to-toe, but Malinovic soon found out that he had most success boxing off the back-foot as Lacombe charged forward.
The visitor was especially effective with his work to the body, while Lacombe slipped most of the head-shots and fired back with some hard hooks, even hurting Malinovic on a couple of occasions.
Malinovic was clearly the busier man and clearly out-worked Lacombe, and it was rewarded by judges Bruno Dubois and Hugues Hellebaut who saw him as the winner by 97-93 and 97-94 scores. Judge Marc Lemiere had Lacombe ahead by 96-94.
The new WBF champion improved his professional record to 18-9-2 (6). Lacombe (37) drops to 13-8-1 (7).
