This was pre-determined. Karim Mayfield was a late substitute taking the 10-round welterweight fight against undefeated Russian Dmitry Mikhaylenko on two weeks notice. It was a chance for Mayfield to grab some momentary relevance on the undercard of the Sergey Kovalev-Jean Pascal HBO broadcast main event. For Mikhaylenko, it was an introduction to a wider boxing audience.
Mayfield, who in all fairness was coming off a 14-month layoff, said he was already training for a fight, but he wasn’t training—nor prepared—for someone like Mikhaylenko.
It showed.
Mikhaylenko (21-0, 9 KOs) systematically broke down Mayfield (19-3-1, 11 KOs) winning a unanimous decision on the scorecards of judges Don Ackerman and John Stewart, who both scored it 100-90 for Mikhaylenko, while Benoit Roussel had it 99-91 for the Russian.
Punch stats bore that out. Mikhaylenko connected on 220 of 756 (29%) total punches, to Mayfield’s total of 104 of 487 (21%) landed. Power shots also favored Mikhaylenko, who landed 168 of 482 shots (35%) to Mayfield’s 88-336 (26%).
Aside from the first few minutes, the theme for this fight took the course of if you saw one round, you saw them all. Mikhaylenko threw accurate, hard shots, and Mayfield went into survival mode, landing an occasional shot but he was more intent to stay on his feet after 10 rounds than winning.
Mayfield was never stopped and he kept that stat intact on his fight resume. Otherwise, he did little else to help himself get another major shot, other than on a club show.
Mikhaylenko didn’t exactly help himself, either. Though a skilled technician, he had a chance to make a star-making turn and didn’t. That may have had something to do with Mayfield, who wasn’t willing to take any chances. But Mikhaylenko, who suffered a minor cut on the corner of his left eye around the third round, hit a fatigued Mayfield 220 times and stunned him possibly once.
That came in the last seconds of the sixth round, when Mikhaylenko hurt Mayfield with an overhand right. By the fifth round, Mayfield was winded. His mouth was wide open, gulping air. By then, Mikhaylenko had outlanded Mayfield by a substantial 94-to-39 margin in total punches. Mikhaylenko burrowed in and came forward the whole night.
Mayfield tried bum rushing Mikhaylenko at the outset. That didn’t work very well. Mayfield threw such a wild punch that he fell, and then quickly grabbed Mikhaylenko’s legs to make sure his opponent wouldn’t retaliate. Mayfield may have been better off staying there. He did go 10 rounds, however.
Joseph Santoliquito is the president of the Boxing Writer's Association of America and a frequent contributor to Sherdog.com's mixed martial arts and boxing coverage. His archive can be found here.