Kazakhstan went into the second and final day of the bout with an overnight 3-2 lead and quickly extended it to 4-2 as their bantamweight star Miras Zhakupov beat Ukraine's Mykola Butsenko in the first bout.

Ukraine then produced a superb fight back as their lightweight Vyacheslav Kyslytsyn defeated Kazakhstan's Eric Donovan to make it 4-3 before the Otamans' middleweight Dmytro Mytrofanov drew the scores level with a win over Konstantin Snigur.

Then Oleksandr Gvozdyk gave Ukraine a 5-4 lead with a win over the Arlans' light heavyweight Ehsan Rouzbahani, leaving them just one win away from the overall crown.


But Kazakh boxer Ruslan Myrsatayev battled to a gutsy win over Ukraine's Rostyslav Arkhypenko at heavyweight to force a sudden death match at bantamweight.

It was then that Kazakhstan played their trump card in the form of Bagdad Alimbekov.

The WSB number three ranked bantamweight had been held back from the main bouts specifically to deal with the risk of a sudden death scenario while Ukraine had already sent their best competitors at the weight out to compete.

It meant that Alexandr Riscan, who held a WSB ranking of just 29 going into the bout, was forced to face the far more experienced Kazakh boxer.

Alimbekov looked comfortable as he took every round on his way to winning the tournament for Kazakhstan in what is season three of the WSB.

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