What's next for Madrimov?

he kind of grew on me during the second half of that fight when he started actually throwing down.

I started rooting for him, much to the annoyance of my daughter who was watching with me. “You’re rooting for him over a Texican? I’m Texican!!!” Man, whatever, he was winning me over by showing a ton of heart and balls. You’ve got to admire a guy with that few pro fights who gets in there with Crawford and Ortiz back to back, gives both of them a rough night.

 

I despise his style. Good fighter though. He jumps around in a very annoying way, swinging his arms and goes forward trying to lean on the guy head first to smother them. Not dirty, not trying to headbutt, but it's ugly.

 

he tried to stomp on Ortiz’s foot at one point. Blatantly. I don’t know WTF was up with that. The ref yelled at him for it.

 

Agree on both counts.

 

Bohachuk or Murtazaliev. I'd pick him on points vs both. Where's Castano now?

 

He needs a lighter touch after 2 back to back tough fighters. I think fighters like Brian Mendoza or Jeison Rosario would be a good for him to bounce back on. Needs to focus on regaining his momentum first before jumping into dangerous punchers like Bohachuk or Murtazaliev.

 

I like Madrimov but have to admit that he used every dirty trick in the book to try and beat Virgil.

 

Might be a Victor Postol like career.

 

This is the fight to make for sure.

 

Man, I don't know. I think he stayed in the amateurs too long. He seems to just run and potshot for four rounds, until he runs out of gas. Works for the amateurs, but the pros are longer, obviously. Also, he doesn't have a crowd pleasing style and now has two losses to top fighters, so there's a blueprint to beat him. If I was his team, I would try to make him more exciting by working on pacing himself, not running (and exhausting himself doing so) and work on delivering his power more efficiently. He obviously hits hard, so it shouldn't take too long to retrofit. Take some somewhat competitive fights to work out the kinks with the new style and get him back into title contention once it's been ironed out.

 

He's the type of guy who can hang in there with anyone but will do just enough to narrowly lose at the highest level.

Without a belt, It'll be very difficult to get fights for him as his amateur-ish style is hard to look good against. He's like Asian Erislandy Lara.

 

Great comparison