Crowd favorite Cătălin "The Carpathian Death" Moroșanu (44-10, 26 KO’s) revisited the scene of his GLORY debut tonight, this time facing a Polish heavyweight by the name of Michal Turynski (21-9, 6 KO’s). Morosanu’s debut was a jaw-shattering stoppage win over Maurice Greene in this same venue, the Sears Centre Chicago. He had the same fate in mind for Turynski, who won a world title under the WAKO banner last year. “I don’t like him. I don’t like his style. He is boring, spoils the fight. Every time you get close to him he tries to take you in his arms and tie you up,” fumed Morosanu in fight week. Turynski disagreed with this assessment, saying that he “fights intelligently” and that Morosanu “just puts his head down and swings big wide hooks at people”. A clash of philosophies then, as well as styles. Morosanu’s philosophy won out. His straightforward tactic of ploughing forwards and firing off bombs means that opponents have no choice but to respond to that, and it is very difficult to do clean work under those conditions. At distance Turynski did great work with his rear knee from southpaw stance, timing Morosanu’s inward approach and hammering him in the worse with it. But when Morosanu got inside without that knee stopping him, Turynski was forced to either join him in swinging for the fences or back out of the exchange hurriedly. It was a scrappy fight, sometimes even sloppy, yet all the more entertaining for it. Morosanu’s scant regard for his personal safety makes him fearless when it comes to throwing full power into every shot. Sometimes he would miss and it would make him stagger in a half-circle, but Turynski was in no rush to jump on him when that happened. Heavy power shots were landed by both fighters over the course of the bout. Turynski weathered some crunching Morosanu hooks which have felled many another opponent, while Morosanu took some big knees to the head and body. The fight went at a frantic pace for three rounds; despite their best efforts neither could find the blow which would end it. Would the judges favor Turynski’s counter-attacking work or Morosanu’s headhunting efforts? As it turned out, they were of differing opinions: two saw it for Turynski and one for Morosanu, returning a split-decision in the Polish heavyweight’s favor and adding a big name win to his record for his GLORY debut. Michal Turynski def. Catalin Morosanu, Split Decision, R3 (30-27, 29-28, 30-27)
