Peter Kadiru stopped in sixth round as Murat Gassiev retains WBA heavyweight title in Moscow

Kadiru had only a few days to prepare for the biggest fight of his career. The southpaw, born in Hamburg and raised partly in Schwerin, where he attended the Sportgymnasium from 2013 and fought for BC Traktor Schwerin under trainer Michael Timm, was a decorated amateur: a three-time European champion, a world championship silver medallist and a gold medallist at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympic Games. Most recently, he had won the WBA Continental title on 15 May by beating Germany's Senad Gashi.

From the opening bell, the contest went against him. Gassiev, the cruiserweight world champion recently upgraded to "full" heavyweight champion by the WBA, repeatedly targeted the body, draining Kadiru's strength round after round. Kadiru lost the first three rounds clearly, and by the time his corner intervened early in the sixth, the outcome was beyond doubt.

A controversial venue

The WBA had staged the title fight in Moscow, a decision that attracted significant criticism in advance. "Wegen Russlands Angriffskriegs gegen die Ukraine und den Sanktionen gegen Russland war der Austragungsort höchst umstritten," according to reporting. Germany's Federal Ministry of Sport and Civic Engagement, the Staatsministerium für Sport und Ehrenamt, feared the event would be used for propagandistic purposes.

Kadiru's team said it wanted to focus solely on the sporting contest. The fact that the title opportunity existed at all stemmed from Ukrainian star Oleksandr Usyk relinquishing his titles, a chain of events that also lifted Germany's Agit Kabayel to the WBC heavyweight world championship.

What next for Kadiru

Despite the stoppage loss, Kadiru leaves the ring with one of the heavier résumés in German heavyweight boxing. His amateur pedigree, the Continental title captured in May and a 23-2 professional record keep him in the mix at world level. The question now is whether Kadiru can regroup after taking on a former champion, and a dangerous body puncher, with almost no preparation time.

For Gassiev, the victory was a routine defence of the belt he held, but the political backdrop of the event is likely to outlast the sporting result. The WBA's choice of venue ensured that the fight was read as much through the lens of geopolitics as through the lens of boxing, a context the Hamburg challenger could not control and could not overcome.