We'll start with the world bout, which was fought in Russia, arguably the biggest Heavyweight bout in a generation. This bout, for the WBA, WBO, IBF, IBO and Ring Magazine titles, saw Wladimir Klitschko (61-3, 51), the Ukrainian king pin of the division, again retain his titles.
Klitschko, facing Alexander Povetkin (26-1, 18), was facing a man with similar amateur pedigree. Both were Olympic Gold medal winners and both were very accomplished in the amateur rankings. In the professional ranks together however Povetkin was found to wanting was he out boxed, out powered and out fought by a bigger, better stronger man.
Povetkin showed fire early on but that fire was slowly put out as Klitschko dropped him in round 2 and then thrice in round 7 en route to taking a very lopsided decision in a less than memorable bout. Hard to call a bout with 4 knockdowns "less than memorable" but the 119-104 bout really was terrible to watch despite the amazingly off scores.
On the same card as Klitschko's bout with Povetkin we also saw a return to the ring of former WBA title holder Ruslan Chagaev (32-2-2, 20) who overcame Jovo Pudar (30-4, 17) in a battle for the PABA title. Pudar looked outclassed from the off and although he was game he was unable to ever match Chagaev.
Although Chagaev did take the victory he did look like a shadow of his former self and fighting at a portly 250lbs would not have done him any favours at all.
Over in the the UK a third Olympic Gold medal winner, Anthony Joshua (1-0, 1) began on his professional journey stopping Italian Emanuele Leo (8-1, 3) in the opening round. On paper this was a great debut for Joshua.
In reality however Joshua looked like a fighter who has a lot of improvements that need making before he even dreams of a British title fight. He had his chin in the air, his defense was poor, his shots seem to lack real venom, however his has lovely speed, some great natural skill and genuine confidence. The journey of Joshua will be great to view, though we don't buy in to the hype of him being the next Great British Heavyweight.
Outside of the former amateur stand outs, Belgian youngster Herve Hubeaux (15-1, 7) successfully claimed the WBC Youth Heavyweight title courtesy of a hard fought decision over Tamas Bajzath (8-6-1, 4). Whilst Hubeaux did manage to take the victory it's fair to worry about his potential given that Bajzath was blasted out in a round by British Cruiserweight novice Danny Price.
Over in the US their was several early finishes. These saw Danny Batchelder (28-9-1, 14) taking out Wesley Barbier (5-2-2, 2) in just 68 out seconds whilst the unbeaten Terrance Dumas (4-0, 3) took 117 seconds to see off the debuting Terrance Brown (0-1).