What was the point of...? (Spoilers)

From the trivia section:

Christopher Lee and Francis Matthews spent several days filming an extended fight sequence for the film's ending. Eventually, much to Matthews's disappointment, most of the scene ended up on the cutting-room floor, leaving his bloody lip in the penultimate shot unexplained.

What was the point of cutting out the majority of the final fight? He had a fairly lengthy fight toward the beginning of the film, so why cut out the one during the film's climax? My first thought would be that they wanted Rasputin to look overpowering, but if that was the case, why'd they let the fiancee put up such struggle earlier in the film? Maybe they cut the ending fight because they wanted more of a focus on suspense and atmosphere rather than action?

Personally, I'd be all in favor of leaving the fight in unless it was just terrible. At the very least, I think they could have added a background sound effect of Ivan getting struck during that one shot where Boris is shown staggering away with a knife in his back. That would have at least explained the bloody lip.