Pardon my French, but блять!!!! This guy was a complete terror in the amateurs, winning 74 and losing ten (with two avenged defeats - including against Eimantas Stanionis!) and with an insane roster of victims: Israil Madrimov x2, Josh Taylor, Gabriel Maestre, Alexander Besputin, Josh Kelly, Ahmed El Mousaoui, Vage Sarukhanyan, Jamel Herring, Shakhram Giyasov, Eumir Marcial x2, Souleymane Cissokho x3. Jesus. His capstone was a well-earned gold medal at the Olympics in Río in 2016. And then...? And then he rested on his laurels and took nearly two years off from the sport between Río and his pro debut. Twenty months of his prime, just lazing about doing ... whatever. Cool, so he finally started his career. Five appearances in 2018, and four in 2019. Great, so far so goo- WTF, YELEUSSINOV?!?!?! One fight in 2020. One fight in 2021. This content is protected fights in 2022. This content is protected fights in 2023. One fight in 2024. ...and now he's scheduled to compete on the Ali Bagodinoviç Akhmedov vs. Maciej Sulęcki undercard this Friday. The only problem is - he doesn't have an opponent. Literally as of today, February twenty-fifth, nobody is scheduled to stand in the opposite corner. His management is frantically scrambling to find someone. Which, okay, that does happen sometimes in this sport. Except...they've been scrambling frantically since at least the beginning of February. If they can't find a name to replace "TBA' he's going to be in very familiar territory, on the shelf. He's now 33.
I can't stress enough how utterly insane a W column this is, especially to have achieved this in under a hundred amateur fights total: Eimantas Stanionis, Israil Madrimov x2, Josh Taylor, Gabriel Maestre, Alexander Besputin, Josh Kelly, Ahmed El Mousaoui, Vage Sarukhanyan, Jamel Herring, Shakhram Giyasov, Eumir Marcial x2, Souleymane Cissokho x3 So much promise. And yet...
Very disappointing indeed as I love Kazakh boxers... I was always wondering why some of them have such an outstanding amateur career and so much talent but become quite inactive as they turn professionals. I heard that for Kazakstan or Ouzbekistan (for exemple) the price bonus is so big when you win a medal (especially gold at Olympics) that you'd have to go very far in a professional career to earn the same amount of money. Look at Jalolov for exemple. So why hassle in the pro ranks taking damage when you can make it easy with pillow gloves and fighting 3 rounds... Also if they decide to stay in their countries, they can really live rich for a while. Also possible that some become sparring partners, happy with the money they make and enjoy the sunshine of Florida (thinking of Dychko unfortunately, Melikuziev...). I didn't even know Melikuziev fought this week... And of course marketing porblem aded to the fact that they are often high risk/low reward opponents.
Let's be honest. He was basically a HBO hype job that would have been battered Ted Cheesman on a Joshua undercard
