Was it better than Schlemenko/Cooper 2?
Nah, but some parts were (a little.) The year off really hurt Sasha; this was the longest layoff he's had to face in his pro career. That was the first time I'd ever seen him come close to gassing (and he did gas at one point.) People always say he gasses when he doesn't, but he
really slowed down in that fight.
He showed a lotta nice improvements to his game, though. He had a really active, aggressive guard when he was on his back, which was really nice to see. Slava's a Combat Sambo world champion; he ain't an easy guy to have success against when he gets on top a ya. Sasha's also starting to really get down his style, combining spinning shots with more-conventional strikes without looking wild or sloppy, and he's using a forearm guard pretty well (he's no Soe Lin Oo with it, but he's improving it little by little.)
Slava also showed a real amount of toughness and durability in the fight. He didn't take that many hard shots to the face, but he took a lot of body shots and didn't slow down much (or he probably did, but he stayed at Shlemenko's pace, which's impressive.) Sasha hits
hard, and he probably landed, like,
at least 30 body shots total throughout the fight, and Slava kept coming.
