Slow burn, this kid. He went an unexceptional 1-3 in the WSB, and 26 losses in the amateurs - which is still very respectable stacked against his win column at 158, leaving him with an 85% overall percentage against very stiff international competition - but the real head-turning elites generally leave slightly better marks. The numbers alone don't tell a complete story, however. He finished with a Silver medal at the Olympics and gold in the AIBA world championships. He pitched not one but two shutout victories against Cuban amateur great Roniel Iglesias, as well as one against Moroccan phenom Muhammed Rabii (with defeats of both Josh Kelly and Daniyar Yeleussinov to his credit). He became the Asian championships gold medalist and was voted best Asian fighter in the Asia Boxing Federation's poll in 2017 (in a blowout, getting 57% of the vote!) and received his nation's most prestigious honor for athletes: the O'zbekiston iftixori medal (sort of equivalent to being knighted in the UK). Already in the pros he is amassing quite the coup stick, with loads of quality in a very short quantity - in fact all within the last year! He dealt tough Ghanaian ex-contender Albert "Tornado" Mensah his only kayo loss to date last August...then did the same to young unbeaten Nicaraguan power-punching southpaw Julio Laguna just a month later. He closed out 2018 with a TKO1 blitz of Mexican former world title challenger Miguel Zamudio on Thanksgiving weekend, and then halted Zamudio's countryman and the WBC's former super featherweight Silver champion Edgar Puerta the week after Valentine's Day. He last fought in April in his light welterweight debut, taking on his p4p best opponent to date (Emanuel "Tranzformer" Taylor) and going the scheduled distance for the first time since his sophomore pro bout against gritty Hungarian journeyman Gabor "The Squirrel" Görbics almost exactly a year earlier. He relocated from Bukhara to Brooklyn to live & train, bringing along coach Ravshan Xodjaev, and is signed to DAZN where he is already stealing the show on their undercards. He will be a welcome addition to both the 140 and 147lb rosters, which are benefiting from an infusion of young well-schooled talent after having grown a little stagnant. Giyasov's pro debut, against 10-2 Argentinian southpaw Nicholas Velazquez: This content is protected Giyasov vs. Mensah: This content is protected Giyasov vs. Taylor: This content is protected (some of the YouTube comments seem to imply that Giyasov received favorable scoring there; stuff & nonsense, ignore them. Everyone in the RBR - the Wangek vs. Estrada rematch thread - had Giyasov taking it just as wide as the judges)
I had a sneaking sense he was a hypejob and had a glass jaw, which is why I avoided making a thread on him, even though a few asked me to do one, and he proved me to be correct when he got the crap beaten out of him, an nearly KO'd a few times by Taylor. Check the RBR, I was pretty harsh n my assessment.
Ehhh... you still had Giyasov clearly beating a solid B+ guy. Also I don't have the same reticence to make a thread on fighters that might not end up being ATGs or anything. I don't really care about "being right", as that isn't even a race I'm running tbh; a fighter is thread worthy if they happen to be the least bit interesting to me, and "prospects" are prospects in my view if they could reasonably end up contending or holding a strap, a much lower hurdle than winding up as dominant elites.
Each round was razor close, I was being lazy that night, it could have easily been a draw. And you really need to watch it, his chin is not good, at all. As far as bragging rights, that has nothing to do with it, I do threads on guys I think might lose when they step up, like with Felix Cash and Richard Riakporhe recently, sometimes I do them on guys that I like their heart and willpower. But its just that I saw nothing all that special in Giyasov and I think he's a glass cannon that won't make it past his first genuinely hard hitting opponent B+ opponent, he barely made it past a light hitting one. He could prove me wrong, but after that Taylor match, I highly doubt it.
I flicked through and checked out a few rounds of the video above while making this earlier. Taylor did get in some good licks, that jolted Giyasov occasionally. ...but I don't really consider Tranzformer a very light hitter, personally. He stopped the fragilest guys he faced beyond gatekeeper level (Cayo & Serrano) that he was supposed to, and while he didn't stop or even drop any of them (and lost officially against 3 of the 4) he did get the respect of Algieri, Mayfield, Broner and Orozco with his shots during that peak 2014-15 run, and stung all of them at times. Even fast-forwarding to a couple of years ago, I remember worrying that if Matthysse was too shot he might have been picking the wrong cherry with Emanuel. Also there may have been some draining effect - that was his first time as low as the light welter limit (he fought at welter even in the amateurs) - or at least acclimating struggles. But if you were already having doubts about his chin I'm sure it wasn't for no reason, you have a good eye for that stuff...
No, e's not that light, bu... anyone with a genuinely good chin should have that bad a reaction to almost every shot of his that landed clean. I didn't realize that about the dropping down to 140, that might explain it to a certain extent. But the only thing that bothers me, even more than his chin, is his poor ring IQ, he seems to have a touch of that Amir Khan syndrome. So chinny, dropping his hands a lot, and mix that with occasionally losing the plot entirely, that isn't a good combo. But... he is fairly entertaining. So that's a plus.
