Shakur Stevenson guaranteed another boxing medal for Team USA by making the Olympic semifinals, while fellow American fighter Gary Russell lost in controversial fashion.
Stevenson, 19, took on Mongolia’s Tsendbaatar Erdenebat in a bantamweight fight, and won 3-0 with unanimous 10-9 scores from judges Hassan Moudrikah, Allan Roos, and Emre Aydin.
WATCH: Full fight replays
Light welterweight Russell, 20, fought Uzbekistan 25-year-old Fazliddin Gaibnazarov. The American lost the first round, but there’s controversy in the splitting of the second round.
Russell: “I feel like I dishonored my family”
Russell landed a couple big shots, while Gaibnazarov’s round was all about tying up the American. Russell decisively took the third round 10-9 on all three cards, but that split second cost him the fight.
U.S. boxing superstar Floyd Mayweather was in the house to watch the two promising Americans fight.