1 year ago today: Andrey Vitalievich "The Russian Bull" Sirotkin vs. Grant "Go Getter" Dennis

There may not be that great a mismatched disparity on paper between 17-1 and 15-2, nor in the ages of 36 and 35 on the night. Make no mistake, however: the British veteran was very much supposed to lose - and he was meant to do so quietly, without giving the house fighter much bother.

He flipped the script, inasmuch as he could - but ultimately Dennis' own chin deficiencies and Sirotkin's thudding power conspired against him so that all the pages of that script, though ruffled, eventually flapped back down and settled into proper order.

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@SladeW's RBR:
https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...aleksei-evchenko-vs-asinia-byfield-rbr.656288

My card is virtually identical, excepting that for the fourth I had 10-9 close for Dennis as opposed to Slade's close for Sirotkin. During that round, as well as the preceding & subsequent one, the Chathamite effectively bamboozled the Gorky native with a mixture of cagey defense, strong double jabs, frequent altitudinal shifts, and timely frustrating clinches throwing a damper on Sirotkin the moment he began to ever look inspired.

Sirotkin did himself no favors during this stretch by experimenting to excess with switch-hitting, either - his transitions were pretty seamless themselves, usually borne of necessity as he found himself in a compromising position in the natural course of circling and pivoting by the ropes, and making lemonade of proverbial lemons by simply jabbing with his right hand when he found himself on a starboard tack. His problem is that he would then quickly seem disoriented by his own choice and forget how to execute punches, or even the basics of footwork, all his movements becoming wooden and clumsy until orthodoxy was restored. Strange because he started his career a southpaw and is still listed as one, both on BoxRec and in Russian media. I think he began to switch-hit at some point and gradually found himself a lot more comfortable fighting right-handed, and has gravitated towards it so much that his original stance is now like an ill-fitting glove when he remembers to lapse back.

Look - even assuming the possibility of a fair shake in Belarus for the visitor, it was never going to be numerically close on points, with Sirotkin netting a 10-7 round in the first and then especially with the nail in the coffin 10-8 in the sixth (meaning even if you had Dennis, as I did, sweeping his run of highly positive work in R3-5, and if he instead of getting stopped had rallied to bank R8-10 - he would still end up losing by a score of 94-93 despite having the higher tally in rounds at 6-4, because of all the knockdowns) - but giving the favorite hell for three rounds on the road is never a bad day at the office. Hell, until getting cuffed upside the head with a power shot after that weird referee interruption two minutes in and being on shaky legs until getting clubbed down with rabbit punches while going for a clinch, Dennis had even been winning the majority of round six pretty clearly - so he actually may well have taken four on the spin if not for that awkward time-in sequence. The finish itself two rounds later was no cleaner or more decisive - the final knockdown, like the one in the 6th, was a partially blocked rabbit punch. It was just heavy enough - and Dennis just incapable of taking it enough - to put him down.

Really not a bad effort, all told, for a bloke whose previous opposition had a combined record of 151-306-17, and whose defeats had both come at domestic level (including being dropped by a novice in an Ultimate Boxxer tourney semifinal three-rounder) - while Sirotkin's only blemish was a TKO7 at the hands of world class John "The Gorilla" Ryder, all trace of video evidence of which seems to have been scrubbed off the internet, oddly.

UK fighters have been the major thorn in the Bull's side, honestly. Between the Ryder stoppage, 3½ rounds of headache courtesy of Dennis, and then in his next outing six months later, this past April, venturing onto enemy soil in Lancashire and being held to a draw by English fellow southpaw Danny Dignum - his prospect value has diminished every time he steps in with a lime-juicer.

 

Annoying that I for whatever reason can't skim through and confirm this, but - if memory serves, wasn't it every time Sirotkin turned southpaw against The Gorilla that Ryder just ****ed him up even worse?