By Luke Furman

On Friday night in Chicago, Polish heavyweight prospect Artur Szpilka (13-0, 10 KOs) scored an impressive sixth round knockout of Mike Mollo (20-4-1, 12 KOs), but the Polish fans were on the edge of their seats as Szpilka himself was dropped two times in the contest and baldy hurt. Now Szpilka moves on route to a clash with undefeated countryman Krzysztof Zimnoch (13-0-1, 10 KOs). The duel between Polish rivals scheduled to take place on Feb. 23 at the Ergo Arena in Gdansk. The highlight of the evening will be a heavyweight battle between Andrew Golota and Przemyslaw Saleta.

Some of the top Polish names discussed Szpilka's big win.

Andrew Golota: Artur lost his way in the first phase of the contest, but then mastered the situation at the very end, and that was most important. He really wanted to box and do not give up. You can see in him the desire to win. In the second half, Artur had a little luck. I'm not sure if Mollo was well prepared for this show, because he just seemed to be rather slow and a little too heavy.

Mateusz Masternak: The fight very interesting and spectacular, and especially its ending. It can be divided into the two phases. First, when functioning well with the straight right, Artur calmly controlled everything and in my opinion should be boxing just like that. But when he stood on the ropes with his right hand lowered, unfortunately that made him a target for Mollo. Such moments for Artur are very dangerous. Artue and his staff need to consider how [this flaw] can be eliminated, because at the highest level you can not commit such errors.

Krzysztof Zimnoch: I am glad that Arthur won and nothing can stand in the way of our fight. Does it surprise me that he was dropped to the mat? No, it's heavyweight boxing, where punches carry a lot of weight and moments of distraction can end like this. Artur showed character.

Luke Furman covers boxing for bosker.org