Earlier this month, Murodjon Akhmadaliev successfully defended his IBF and WBA junior featherweight titles with a fifth-round stoppage over former IBF titlist Ryosuke Iwasa.

Akhmadaliev (9-0, 7 knockouts) is rated No. 1 by The Ring at 122 pounds and thrilled his fans in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

“I was very confident and really wanted to put on a good performance for my hometown fans,” Akhmadaliev told The Ring through Alik Frolov. “My fans mean everything to me. I fight for my family and my fans. All I have to say is that this was very exciting.

“So far this was the most important fight of my life and I gave it all in training for the performance to come out the way it did.”

After such a successful show, “MJ” would like to bring further events to Uzbekistan.

“I am hoping that in the near future I can return to my home country and fight here again,” said the 26-year-old southpaw.

Vadim Kornilov, Akhmadaliev’s manager, had several of his other Uzbek fighters on the undercard including Israil Madrimov and Shakhram Giyasov, who both impressed.

Kornilov was also very pleased with how the homecoming event went before turning his attention to what comes next.

“The whole team did a great job and it paid off,” said Kornilov. “Murodjon proved that he is a true champion to be reckoned with. We have a WBA mandatory against Ronny Rios. After that, we hope to start talking about further unifications.”

Questions and/or comments can be sent to Anson at [email protected] and you can follow him on Twitter @AnsonWainwright

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