By Ruslan Chikov

During the later rounds of last Saturday's fight with former four division champion Roy Jones Jr., Russian cruiserweight Denis Lebedev began to have flashbacks of his close split decision loss to WBO champion Marco Huck from last December. Lebedev began to feel the pace of the fight slowing down in the later rounds, in the exact manner as the fight with Huck, which made Lebedev increase his pressure to eventually knock Jones out in the tenth round of their fight in Moscow's Dynamo Arena.

In the later rounds of his fight with Huck, Lebedev felt that maybe he didn't put in enough work and allowed the rounds to be too close. This time he wasn't going to take any chances.

"I have to say that I have more work to do. Jones was exactly as we expected - he was clever, quick and cunning. His punches did not become sluggish. Maybe he just lost some of his reaction time, but the speed and impact of his punches has remained. The most difficult rounds were between the sixth and the eighth. It seemed, that he got winded and that was the turning point," Lebedev told Alexander Pavlov

"During this moment I also remembered the battle against Marco Huck in which, in the later rounds the fight slowed down. I thought [Jones] would come at me but he did not. Therefore, based on my past bitter experience, it was necessary to work until the very end."