Barrera knocks out Shabranskyy in HBO Latino main event

Defensive shortcomings spelled doom for Vyacheslav Shabranskyy last night on HBO Latino, as the previously unbeaten prospect was knocked around the ring and finally knocked out in the seventh round by contender Sullivan Barrera.

Barrera (18-1, 13 KO) dropped Shabranskyy in the first, fifth, and seventh rounds, and was down himself in the second frame. Shabranskyy (17-1, 14 KO) just had no real answer for Barrera’s advantage in hand speed, and the 29-year-old Ukrainian heads into 2017 with a far more uncertain future than he anticipated.

The win also reestablishes Barrera, 34, as a legitimate contender in the light heavyweight division, following his loss earlier this year to Andre Ward. Losing to Ward was never anything to be ashamed of, but we now know that his 2015 knockout of Karo Murat wasn’t an abnormality, either.

In the co-feature, welterweight prospect Rashidi Ellis (17-0, 12 KO) remained undefeated with an 89-second knockout of Eddie Gomez (19-2, 11 KO), whose prospect bubble has now definitely been burst. It’s a big win for Ellis, 23, to close his year, and a pretty devastating defeat for Gomez, 24, who has now been found out two times, in very different fashion.