Photos: Sergey Kovalev Comes Home, Beats Issac Chilemba

Ekaterinburg, Russia:   Tonight at the DIVS Sports Palace in Ekaterinburg, Russia undefeated WBO, WBA and IBF Light Heavyweight World Champion Sergey "Krusher" Kovalev (30-0-1, 26 KOs*) dazzled his hometown crowd during 12 heart stopping rounds as he defeated Isaac "Golden Boy" Chilemba (24-4-2, 10 KOs) via unanimous decision. Photos Courtesy of Alexandr Safonov/Championat.com

The hard-fought battle between Kovalev and Chilemba was non-stop action from bell to bell. Kovalev came out of the gates guns blazing but the tough Chilemba took every punch handed out by the hard-hitting champ.

The toughest round for the 29-year old Chilemba was the 7th when he was knocked down by the Krusher. Chilemba managed to recover and last the remainder of the fight.

Isaac is only the second fighter to go the full 12 championship rounds with Kovalev (Bernard Hopkins was the first, Nov. 8, 2014, which Kovalev won by UD). However, it was not enough to secure the victory against the more powerful Kovalev. The judges handed the victory to Kovalev (117-110, 116-111, 118-109).

The challenger said, "I want to thank Kovalev and his team. I came here to fight. As I said before I have been short a couple times at my world title shot. Tonight I had three titles in the palm of my hand and I came here to give all I can. I believe I did give it my all and unfortunately I came up short. I am proud of my performance tonight even though I didn't get a victory tonight and I thank God for that. I am a fighter. I was born a fighter. I was born a warrior. I always fight. I always get going and I won't back down. I will be back soon in the ring. I believe my promoter and my team will give me that. I will be back soon."

On fighting in front of his hometown crowd for the first time as a champion, "When I box as a visitor, there are much less fans that support me, there is more support for the opponents and I love to disappoint my opponents' fans, which is sort of a motivation."

Main Events' CEO, Kathy Duva, CEO added, "The toughest fight is always the one right before the big one and for a road-warrior like Sergey the toughest fight is the one at home. Tonight Sergey had both tonight. On top of that Isaac Chilemba fought the fight of his career tonight. Isaac deserves all the credit in the world for going 12 rounds with the Krusher. This is the type of tough fight Sergey needed to prepare for Andre Ward. Like the great champion he is, Sergey overcame all these obstacles and won."

Also appearing on the card was Main Events' super welterweight prospect Madiyar Ashkeyev (4-0, 3 KOs) of Kazakhstan who scored a second round knockout over Ismat Eynullayev (7-1, 4 KOs) of Azerbaijan.