Evgenios "Achilles" Lazaridis

The six-foot-six Athenian heavyweight today improved to 8-0 (5) in legitimate professional boxing, knocking out a Pole in Germany on a card televised live across the continent on EuroSport. This complements his 9-3 (3) mark in the tourney format of "Bigger's Better", in which he was crowned the winner of BBXX in 2013 - and his 44-4 in amateur boxing, putting his grand total in all combined forms of the sport at 61-7.

His losses in BB came against Mairis Briedis (via TKO2) of Latvia and Spas Genov of Bulgaria (on points), and Lucian Bot in a rematch on points. He posted victories over Lucian Bot & Neculae Madalin of Romania, Kamil Sokolowski of Poland, Dimitar Taskov of Macedonia, Zaza Lazic of Serbia, Vlasis Apostokalis of Greece, Alexander Kartozia of Georgia, Yavuz Keles of Germany, and Mathieu Kongolo of Belgium.

His only stoppage loss - amateur, pro, or BB - to Mairis Briedis, is no great shame. Not only is Briedis a 2x BB tourney champion and crowned the "King of 2013" in a playoff tourney pitting all the year's tourney winners against each other, he is currently 15-0 (12) in officially recognized pro boxing and has started taking out some moderately good names to prove his power is real.

Lazaridis is promoted by the people behind the BB tourney, which they seem to have suspended indefinitely. They left him idling on the shelf for eleven months from July 2013 until last June, but activity has picked up with six appearances in a year now. He faced his best non-BB opponent this past April, in the form of Ivica Perkovic. Hopefully the progression builds and he is stepped up while still young. (27, a baby for the HW division)

Here are highlights of his battering of Malujda this afternoon:

This content is protected

 

There is a lot he needs to work on to even become acceptable "Euro titlist cannon fodder", as he needs to unlearn some bad habits from the short tourney format (namely, his stamina after 3-4 rounds is pretty horrendous - and he's fairly slow of hand to begin with...and speaking of hands, both are carried low even when he's fresh, relying entirely for his defense on upper body movement, which again, isn't so fast...) - but he does have some positives about him. The big fat Greek* warrior is heavy-handed and has both heart and killer instinct, both intangibles which have been found lacking in more talented HW prospects that have quickly hit their ceiling well below projected heights.


*He isn't really that fat, just riffing on pop culture.

 

Well his KO rate is 63% in real boxing, up from 30% in BB.

Twofold reasons there; he was thrown in with the sharks in BB (remember, in his earliest appearances he was in with pro boxers having not yet made his own debut) and those were only 3-rounders, like in Prizefighter, giving less opportunity to break someone down for a stoppage than normal pro bouts, which provide you a minimum of 4 even at the very outset.

 

Taishon. :yep

Actually with his moderately decent amateur background and having mixed with a higher level than your average 8-0 prospect (who isn't receiving big financial backing) due to his BB experience, Lazaridis would be a pretty huge step-up for Dong at this point.

6-18-3 Jamal Woods held the big lug to a MD last month, so an upset for Achilles definitely wouldn't be outta the question even giving up half a foot.

 

Sounds appetizing!

Then maybe step up to a Steve Vukosa spanakopita?

 

Definitely not "very good", but might win a Euro title.

 

Way too durable & dangerous. :bart

 

Lazaridis vs. Malujda, full bout:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7asAWbpIYc