Zhankosh Zhasulanovich "Da Kazakh Kid/Mini GGG" Turarov

He's baaaaaaaaaaaack. With a very rocky 21 month layoff behind him, the all-but-forgotten slick & graceful welterweight previously at the vanguard of his generation's crop of elite Kazakh amateur talent following in Golovkin's wake and setting up shop in the USA (having either co-featured on cards with or trained in American gyms alongside countrymen the likes of Kanat Islam, Zhanibek Alimkhanuly, Nursultan Zhangabayev, etc.) is ready to rock once more. The layoff was due to a myriad of issues - ranging from a hand injury, to legal troubles (he was person of interest, and was eventually arraigned for "hooliganism" in Almaty stemming from a nightclub shooting incident, where he was actually the intended target of gun shots after leading a brawl involving his group of friends and some bouncers), and general mismanagement - and saw his world rankings and momentum evaporate into thin air. He did spend the bulk of that downtime, however, availing himself of world class sparring and has been honing the considerable skills already developed from his days in the amateur program under the Khukh Tengri (blue sky) of his native land and then further cultivated under Roger Mayweather's tutelage before the Black Mamba's health began deteriorating.

Turarov signed with MTK Global earlier this month, and in July will host fellow unbeaten amateur standouts David Oliver Joyce and Nordine Oubaali in a triple-header in Astana, scheduled for live broadcast on ESPN+. Before that, he's going to shake off some rust in a 6-rounder a week from Saturday on the undercard of ESPN+'s show in Cardiff, Wales.

He's still only 28, and has been keeping in shape and cutting his teeth on a pretty high level of competition in gym wars, so he ought to be able to pick up more or less where he left off before his minor derailment (coming, inconveniently as it was, smack in the middle of his prime). Welterweight is actually fairly wide open for a young talent, in that once you get past the "Big Three" (Crawford, Spence, and Thurman) you have a lot of good-but-not-great types (Ugas, Avanesyan, etc), and some big names that are either over the hill or nearly there (Pac, Berto, Collazo, Josesito, etc) - so if he's as good as his peak hype suggested, the path should be clear to pick a weak title holder's pocket. He needs to step up soon, though. He was already overdue for a graduation to higher quality opposition before the layoff, and the fact that he debuted in the pros a decade ago but doesn't have a single recognizable-to-a-casual name on his record is something he needs to fix, pronto.


For my fellow handsomeness dilettantes @Serge & @CST80 - here's the recipe for Turarov, in terms of facial structure:

¼ Richard Castellano (played the role of Pete Clemenza in The Godfather)
¼ Tom Hardy (star of Venom, Bane from The Dark Knight Rises, Alfie Solomons in Peaky Blinders, Max Rockatansky in Fury Road, etc)
¼ Michael Imperioli (played Tony's nephew Christopher Moltisanti on The Sopranos)
¼ Dante Bosco (played Rufio in Hook, and voiced Prince Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Weird that his mix is so heavy on the dagos. You'd think more Asiatic or northern Europeans would be in there. Overall, he is a 7.5 by Kazakh standards, probably a low 8 in the global population.

 

I knew there was a boxer he sort of resembled put couldn't put my finger on it. Was actually leaning toward Sergiy Fedchenko if you put his detached head in a 10-gallon drum of vinegar for a week and then sewed it back on.

 

Opponent named: Ghanaian former WBA Pan African welterweight champion Richmond Djarbeng. His record is 29-3-2 (23) and naturally all the kayos were against tomato cans at home in Accra. One loss was by TKO3 against Jeff Horn, and in another he went the distance with countryman Emanuel Lartey.

So basically Turarov should be able to get the stoppage here. Wouldn't be Armageddon if he didn't...but, he should.

 

Turarov just battered a courageous but outgunned Filipino named Ali Cañega on the undercard of Ali Bagodinoviç Akhmedov vs. Joseph Maigwisya, winning by scores of 100-87 x2 and 100-88.

That isn't the bump-worthy news, though. Somebody in the YouTube stream live chat mentioned something (and this is from Kazakh, through Google Translate) about Turarov having a victory over Terence Crawford. I find that very difficult to believe, as if true it would likely be listed on either BoxRec or at the very least on Turarov's page on the Kazakh or Russian language versions of Wikipedia. No mention on either - in fact BoxRec has zero amateur record listed for him, period (and Wikipedia in Russian explicitly states that he didn't have any especially notable amateur victories)

Why would someone make up such a random lie, though?

It's driving me nuts.

 

I'm leaning towards it being a mix-up of tenses in Google Translate. As in, the person was commenting (sarcastically I'd presume) to say Turarov would beat Crawford ...

Unless there is video I am not buying that he beat him in the ams.