The Hussars’ management had reinforced their team last month with the likes of Riccardo D’Andrea, but even the experienced Italian could not halt the Venezuelans’ march to a 3-2 victory.

The early signs were good from the hosts, now led by one of WSB’s most well-travelled coaches Sergey Korchinsky, with Dawid Jagodzinski in attacking mood against Angelino Cordova in their opening light-flyweight bout.

He was unable to sustain the pressure, however, allowing the Venezuelan too much room from which to launch his combinations and earn the visitors an early lead.

That left a lot of weight on the shoulders of Hussars’ newcomer D’Andrea and he edged the opening round against Jose Diaz.

The crowd’s growing optimism was to be short lived, though, as the Caciques’ talented bantamweight registered with a lethal right jab late in the second round to put the Italian on the canvas, forcing the referee to end the match.

Diaz is earning himself a reputation for landing big punches having knocked out Argentina’s Elias Gonzalez last season. 

At 2-0 down, the Hussars were able to call upon another new addition, Germany’s light welterweight star Kastriot Sopa, to try and turn the match around.

Eager to inflict an emphatic defeat, Caciques’ Luis Arcon went on the attack immediately and, although Sopa had little response in the opening rounds, the German grew in confidence as his opponent tired and used all his experience to carve out a narrow win over the five rounds.

Pawel Ruminski was called upon to replace Polish welterweight star Tomasz Jablonski in the Hussars’ team, and his debut could hardly have been more testing against Rio 2016 Olympic test event winner Johan Jose Gonzalez.

Ruminski was unable to cause an upset, despite a battling performance, and the Caciques took an unassailable 3-1 lead on the night.

It may have been a dead rubber in terms of the match, but the final heavyweight bout between the hosts’ Michal Olas and Caciques’ Colombian import Deivis Julio brought a morale-boosting win for the Hussars.

Struggling early on, Olas bravely fought his way back into the match, knocking his opponent down in the third round and giving the crowd something to cheer on a difficult night for the Poles.

WSB action is scheduled to continue tomorrow as defending champions Astana Arlans Kazakhstan play host to Azerbaijan Baku Fires.