Vyacheslav "Lion Heart aka Slava" Viktorovych Shabranskyy

He's making a comeback tonight - with no hype or fanfare, at cruiserweight, in an 8-rounder on a non-televised card in Burbank, CA. His opponent is Gilberto "El Locomotora" Rubio Norzagaray, a Mexican (with an emphasis on the last syllable, if you catch my drift ) with a 9-7 record.

This is Shabranskyy's first outing since he was Krushed in 2 rounds back in November of 2017. A soft touch like this is probably a wise decision coming off a brutal loss or a 1½ year layoff - never mind the cumulative deleterious effects of both. If he can get himself into decent shape again physically and psychologically, how do we like his chances at CW? He's only 32, not ancient for this weight range, and didn't seem to be past his prime in his pair of losses at light heavy - just outmatched against two excellent fighters, no real shame there. He also is well accustomed to fighting above the 175lb limit, as he spent both of his seasons in the semi-pros (WSB, posting a 6-2 record overall) in the 85kg class, which is essentially cruiser (187lbs to be precise)...and in the amateurs he fought at 81kg, which is a few pounds above professional boxing's interpretation of "light heavyweight". His frame was also honestly always freaking huge for LHW, as he's 6′ 3½″.

I'll be pulling for the lanky Ukrainian boxer-puncher; who knows, maybe he'll undergo the same kind of surprising metamorphosis as Maksim Vlasov (the Russian having mixed success at light heavy, defeated by his two best opponents there, but moving up and becoming a very solid contender at 200lbs) and be part of some exciting match-ups. I'm not ready to write him off altogether just because Kovalev and Barrera happened to both kayo him.

 

Yep, and he was obviously the underdog against Kovalev but I remember some thinking he could hang, maybe go long, or even a slim (but reasonable) chance at the upset depending on how much the Ward rivalry had diminished Sergey..

 

Yeah, not paying to watch him dispatch someone like Rubio Norzagaray in like 90 seconds.

 

Oh wow, apparently Rubio Norzagaray was a late sub, originally Shabranskyy was supposed to have fought Allan "Ghost Dog" Green tonight! Pretty damn high risk and low reward for somebody in Shabranskyy's position..

 

@Somachenko what's the link for the garbage online PPV, in case people are interested? Having trouble finding it..already checked fite.tv and the other usual haunts..

 

This guy is commentating the show, if nothing else he might update the result on Twitter so we don't have to wait until sometime next week:

Check out Manouk Akopyan (@Manouk_Akopyan): https://twitter.com/Manouk_Akopyan?s=09

I don't think Shabrabskyy has even fought yet, actually...Manouk said it was a 10-fight card starting at 7 pacific time (which is 10pm, not even three hours ago...)

 

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