Bohachuk Edges Radzhab Butaev By Split Decision

The co-main event of Zuffa Boxing 2 at UFC APEX had the look of a simple enough puzzle, one man coming forward like a minor natural disaster, the other trying to keep his work clean and his lungs quiet. By the end of ten hard rounds in Las Vegas, the judges were split, the fighters were not, and the crowd sounded like it had been asked to choose between two different kinds of pain.

Serhii Bohachuk did what he usually does: he took away space and made every exchange feel like it was happening in a phone booth. Radzhab Butaev started the brighter, digging spiteful hooks into the body and then, as the rounds settled, slipping into a more measured, boxing-first rhythm, changing looks and spending spells trying to make Bohachuk reset before he could plant his feet. It was clever work, and it was not remotely relaxing, because even when Butaev boxed, he still sat down on shots as if he didn’t believe in saving anything for later.

Bohachuk’s answer was not subtle. He kept stepping in, taking whatever came back, and forcing Butaev to fight with his back nearer the ropes than he’d have preferred. From around the middle rounds, the pressure began to show on Butaev’s posture. He was still firing, still accurate, but he was having to work harder for his room, and Bohachuk’s right hand, thrown short and straight through the gap, began to thud into the head and shoulders often enough to make the judging argument a real one. One man was landing cleaner, the other was landing heavier, and the ring was too small for either to pretend otherwise.

There was no knockdown to simplify matters, no sudden cut to force a narrative, just a steady accumulation of hard exchanges that never quite tipped into recklessness, but always threatened to. The seventh and eighth were the sort of rounds that make corners talk in short sentences, both men still in front of each other, still willing, still finding the body whenever the head stopped being available. By the tenth, they were trading in close again, almost parked on the ropes, flinging shots with the urgency of men who knew they’d left it just close enough for someone else to decide.

When the cards came back, Bohachuk got the split decision, 96–94 twice, with the third judge at 96–94 for Butaev. Two judges sided with Bohachuk, one sided with Butaev, and the numbers told their own little story. Butaev edged the total punches landed, 248–227, but the majority preferred Bohachuk’s forward march and the weight of his best work down the stretch. It was, in other words, a decision that told you exactly what kind of fight it had been.

For Bohachuk, this one mattered, not just because a win is a win, but because it steadied him after a rough stretch and came in his first fight at 160, a move he’d spoken about after struggling to make the lower weight. Butaev, stubborn and skilled, can walk away feeling unlucky without sounding dishonest, but also knowing that giving ground to a man like Bohachuk is a tax that always comes due. However you scored it, the bout did what a co-main is supposed to do, it made the main event’s job harder by raising the temperature in the room.