Murat Georgievich Gassiev vs. Ademola Michael James Balogun

Tomorrow in Yerevan on RenTV. 10 rounds scheduled at heavyweight.

Gassiev, a North Ossetian now based in California, is a former IBF and WBA cruiserweight titlist and has gone 3-0 since moving up to HW following his only professional loss against Oleksandr Usyk in a cruiser unification five years ago. He will bring a 2½″ height advantage over the Nigerian-American southpaw, a former NFL linebacker who is undefeated but a decade older than Gassiev and with just one notable opponent in Trey Lippe (son of WBO heavyweight champion Tommy Morrison; Balogun iced the previously unbeaten Lippe inside one round in December of 2012).

 

Note: probably only the main event is going to be aired on Ren, as they have a timeslot of 3pm-4:15pm EST booked into their programming schedule:
https://ren.tv/tv-program#current-program-3

That is enough time for ring walks and ten full rounds plus talking heads discussing the fight before & following, plus commercials.

Undercard if anything may be streamed on social media.

 

Yeah it vanished just shortly before I posted this very thread (actually had its event page up while making it, and then upon refreshing it's gone) - but there's nothing anywhere online about it being canceled, so no cause for alarm. Could just be some BR editor screwing about. RenTV still has it on their lineup and Lou DiBella just posted about the weigh-in results a couple of hours ago, so it's still on unless otherwise noted. BoxRec just does that weird disappearing/reappearing act for some cards now and then, doesn't mean anything necessarily.

 

I was about to send you a PM but

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So, assuming you don't have me on ignore (since you can view my threads) you must have something weird flipped on in your personal forum settings that blocks any incoming messages.

 

Tbf he's only coming in three pounds heavier than Balogun himself at 235.

Prepare for:

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True but that was in 2018. Throughout the campaign at heavyweight he has routinely weighed in somewhere in the 230's.

242¾ versus Welch, 233¼ versus Wallisch and 230½ versus Seferi.

So yes, it's a career high but it is more or less consistent with his recent fighting weights (compared with when he was a cruiser).

At his previous heaviest, he didn't look terribly obese carrying just a few pounds less than today:

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It's honestly a wonder he actually managed to make the CW limit for seven years.

 

Abusive best friend of StimpyTV.