By Jake Donovan

You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who’d want to remember the 10 dull round of boxing offered between Isaac Chilemba and Vasily Lepikhin. The bout – which served as the opener for an HBO-televised tripleheader live from Montreal, Canada – remained in one direction throughout, with Chilemba dominating en route to a landslide decision.

Fans will be quick to move on from the fight, pretending as if it never happened. Sadly, the fight went exactly as most expected, as the matchup was never met with much enthusiasm.

In regards to what took place from bell to bell, Chilemba was wise enough to predict what would come from his opponent and fought accordingly.

“He did exactly what we expected. We were totally prepared for what he brought,” insists Chilemba (24-2-2, 10KOs), who has now won four straight. “I was patient and I capitalized on it.”

The win can be chalked up to the old adage of win tonight, look good the next time. The issue for Chilemba – in the way of entertainment value – is that there never seems to be a next time.

The light heavyweight contender went 0-1-1 in a pair of bouts with Tony Bellew, neither of which were particularly memorable for its in-ring action so much as the debatable – though not necessarily controversial – scores that followed. Among his current win streak, the dominant performance over Lepikhin is the closest he claims to making a statement.

Don’t expect an apology for the performance, or for a tiger to change his stripes any time soon.

“I think he ran out of ideas and I wasn’t going to fall for any of his games. I am very pleased with my performance tonight.”

Lepikhin suffers his first career loss, falling to 17-1 (9KOs). The rail thin Russian boxer is managed by Egis Klimas, who also guides the career of top light heavyweight Sergey Kovalev. While Saturday’s bout was not a sanctioned eliminator, Chilemba will likely move closer towards a title shot, as both he and Kovalev are promoted by Main Events, as is Nadjib Mohammedi, Kovalev’s mandatory who won in a walkover off-TV on the undercard.

Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox