Despite Setbacks for Three World Champions, U.S. Amateur Boxers Defeat Soviet Team, 7-5

World champions Kelcie Banks, Kenneth Gould and Darin Allen were dealt convincing losses, but the American amateur boxing squad defeated the Soviet Union, 7-5, Thursday night in their annual 12-match encounter.

It was the first time since 1983 that the U.S. squad had defeated the perennially strong Soviet team in the series, which began in 1969. The teams tied in 1985.

In the night’s crowd-pleaser, light heavyweight Bomani Parker of Cincinnati thoroughly whipped favored Andrei Karavaev by knocking him to the canvas once and causing the referee to interrupt the bout two more times. The referee finally halted the contest altogether with only four seconds remaining in the bout.

Gould’s welterweight bout was stopped by the referee 1 minute 24 seconds into the third round after the southpaw was knocked to the canvas with a straight right by Alexander Ostrovsky.

Banks, a rangy 6-footer, let a shorter Mikhak Kazarian outpoint him with machine-gun flurries to the body while Banks went for the head in their featherweight contest. The three judges--one Soviet, one American and one from a neutral country--split, 2-1, in awarding the decision to Kazarian.

Allen lost a bruising middleweight bout on a 2-1 vote by the judges for Ruslan Taramov.