Ali Bagodinoviç Akhmedov - remember the name.

Ali departs the USA today, going from Austin to Astana (nearly a 30hr flight!!!), set to spark up an eleven day training camp in prep for his clash with J.T. before likely, IMO, sparking J.T. in as many or fewer minutes.

 

So, not only was Alimkhanuly robbed in the Olympics, but pretty much all his recent/major tourney losses in the amateurs have been against Uzbeks and had some fishy odor about them.

His only really 100% legit defeat that I can ferret out (besides a tight 7:5 decision going the way of Andrey Yegorov back when Alimkhanuly was just 15 years old) is him getting KTFO1'ed by Ievgen Khytrov in half a minute. Khytrov is a beast, though - or at least was in the amateurs.

 

Still holding out hope that videos of 2016's Bocskai István Memorial Tourney finals at 81kg turn up so we can reach the bottom of the whole Buatsi TKO3 business.

 

Well, six of those seven candidates we can eliminate straight off the bat:

1. Wrong hair color, build and stance, too wild. (+ has tats?)
2. Black.
3. Black.
4. Could be our guy. Style and general appearance seem to fit and the writing on the ring adverts to my (squinting, on my cellphone) eyes very well might be in Hungarian.
5. White guy but probably not him. Writing on turnbuckles and rope-ties in English, and brands are British.
6. WSB.
7. Rio Olympics.

Thinking it really could be that our Ali is the fourth victim there.

 

Actually having watched it a few times now there's nothing all that damning in that sequence (from about 0:24 until 0:31/32), barely anything lands that flush. I see Akhmedov - if that's him, which is my growing hunch - doing his usual thing and riding some grazing shots. If that was in fact the moment of the stoppage it was an incredibly weak one, even for the amateurs.

 

I think between those already competing professionally and some other young guns on the opposite side of the barrier (still active in the WSB and international AM tourneys), at this point the Kazakh program has somebody with real world class potential up and down the scale, possibly even a titlist (or at least strong challenger) for every single division. Bright future indeed.

 

Well unless he used to be dark-skinned and went through some kind of Michael Jackson metamorphosis, I think we can rule out #2. Maybe not the highest resolution but still enough to make out a fair amount of melanin on Buatsi and his opponent.

I'm pretty much all but satisfied that #4 is him. Just need a Hungarian poster to confirm the language on the ring ads, or for someone to find a photo depicting the ring or arena for the 60th Bocskai István Memorial Tourney in Debrecen to see if the video is a match.

 

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Confirmed! ...and if that is the part of their fight that made the "highlight" reel, that presumably was the stoppage itself. Which means no worries regarding Akhmedov's chin.

 

To be clear, that isn't them (Buatsi nor Akhmedov), but that is a pic of the ring from the Debrecen tourney last year.