The contrasting styles of the two fighters made for a fantastic bout, with Harutyunyan's all guns blazing mentality up against Lopez's more rounded boxing style.

Lopez looked smooth in the opening minutes of the bout but Harutyunyan was able to catch him with a number of blows.

Lopez was more dominant in the second round and was able to begin dictating the tempo and direction of the fight.

Harutyunyan had not given up the ghost and continued to try and hurt Lopez, although in vain as the Brazilian held on for victory. 

Defending world champion Everton Lopez (red) had a tough encounter against German boxer Artem Harutyunyan



Ireland's Michael Conlan was impressive in his bantamweight encounter with fellow World Series of Boxing (WSB) boxer Brian Gonzalez.

The speedy Mexican looked to push the pace from the go, however had to be more cautious than he has been in previous bouts, with Conlan happy to stand his ground and throw punch after punch at his opponent.

Conlan, a London 2012 bronze medallist in the flyweight division, started the bout by trying to evade Gonzalez., but soon found out his opponent's speed made this tactic difficult.

He soon discovered that he was more than a match for Gonzalez when the two were simply trading blows and used this knowledge to his advantage, slowing the tempo and landing some huge blows on his rival

Some great lefts to the body from Conlan began to take their toll on Gonzalez and proved the turning point as the 21-year-old from Belfast came out on top.

"I could tell I was hurting him with the body shots," he said.

"But he is a class opponent.

"He has very fast hands but I knew he wasn't able to take the shots I was giving him."

Irish Bantamweight Michael Conlan (blue) looked impressive in his bout with speedy Mexican Brian Gonzalez

One of the best bouts of the day came in the middleweight division with Brazil's Florentino Falcao Esquiva coming up against Russia's Artem Chebotarev.

The two fighters took it in turns to impose themselves on the bout, each showing glimpses of pure brilliance in what was an exceptional confrontation.

It was Chebotarev who seemed to possess the more power and by round three was clearly the more dominant and will be a real force to be reckoned with in the quarter finals after taking the bout 3-0.

Kazakhstan's Zhanibek Alimkhanuly pleased home fans today by beating Mexico's Juan Mercado at middleweight, dominating his opponent from start to finish.

Mercado was hardly able to get off more than a dozen punches during the whole of the second round whilst Alimkhanuly was landing punch after punch in what was effectively target practice.

Mercado was given a standing eight count in the final round and soon after was forced to retire from the bout.

Kazakhstan's Zhanibek Alimkhanuly (blue) was dominant in his win over Mexican Juan Mercado at middleweight


Another local to impress was Marey Akshalov in his fight against the Dominican Republic's Carlos Adames, who had looked good in the opening round

Akshalov, obviously buoyed on by his home crowd, worked hard throughout the opening round and his work ethic began to pay off as his opponent began to fade during the latter stages of the first round.

By the second round Akshalov was clearly on top, forcing Adames to defend and not giving him any time to go on the offensive.

As the noise levels in the crowd began to increase, so did the local's dominance and by the end of the third round the Kazakh boxer was able to offload his punches at will, leading him to a well deserved 3-0 victory.

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