Tag Archives: kudryashov
In Appreciation of Dmitry Kudryashov
By: Ste Rowen
Forever swinging, forever searching. Living the life that most boxing fans dream of having if they were a boxer. On Sunday, the bearded brute, Dmitry Kudryashov hit the canvas, rose like a drunken phoenix but still couldn’t find a route to victory. However, it doesn’t matter, not really.
He won’t like losing, he’s probably re-watching the bout now and trying to analyse where he went wrong but the fact is, fans don’t care. Those of us that love action, blood, and a warning sign for kids before watching, Dmitry is the king. The prince that was promised shouldn’t care about his third loss or that it was yet another knockout defeat.
On Sunday, up against the former WBC cruiserweight challenger, Ilunga Makabu, Kudryashov was outclassed in every aspect, but relentlessness. The southpaw from the Congo marked his territory early, constantly rocking the Russian in Ekaterinburg, Dmitry’s home territory and when he dropped Kudryashov in round two, the African would’ve been ready to end the fight there. But that’s not how it works with Dmitry. If you hit him hard, make it stick, ala Durodola and Dorticos. And even in his first fight with Olanrewaju Durodola, Dmitry was still standing as the referee stepped in, much like this weekend.
The ‘Russian Hammer’ was born in Volgodonsk. A city just about in Russia, and Kudryashov is just about in the mix with the best cruiserweights. At this point, with no world title, he’s probably what most trainers would view as an unneeded risk. But if you beat him, like Makabu did on Sunday, you put the rest of the division on notice.
Whether he continues or not – ‘please, Lord make sure he continues.’ –
Kudryashov will always be watched. He’s the cruiserweight Gatti looking for his Ward. There would be no disappointment from this writer if the winner of Dorticos vs. Briedis (the WBSS2 final) were to announce that their next bout was against Dmitry.
Look up ‘beautiful brutality’ in the boxing dictionary and there’ll be a bloody nosed picture of the Russian, almost definitely widely swinging in any direction. God gave Dmitry the power, to make up for his lack of chin.
He’s exactly what people want to see. No matter how many times you hear people feign concern when a fighter is knocked out and lying on the canvas, the fact is, that’s exactly why we turn up, tune in and get excited.
Kudryashov is not going the distance, he’s never going to be recognised as the G.O.A.T. but by God, that crazy mother Russian is gonna go down swinging to prove he is.
More Columns
The World Boxing Super Series Begins
The World Boxing Super Series Begins
By: Matthew N. Becher
Over the past weekend, the newly created World Boxing Super Series held its very first draft, for its very first tournament. The premise of the new tournament is an open competition for any professional boxer that is ranked in the top 15 of the major sanctioning bodies systems.
In theory the best fighters would face off against one another, until the last man was standing, thus making him the #1 boxer in that weight class. Simple. That is the easy part, the hard part is getting the best fighters to all participate in such a tournament, with everyone having different promoters and so forth. Fortunately, it seems to have worked out for the initial Cruiserweight Tournament.
The seeding of the tournament went as follows. The top 4 fighters were ranked 1-4 by the WBSS, with the four belt holders getting the top rankings.
1: Oleksander Usyk (WBO)
2: Murat Gassiev (IBF)
3: Mairis Briedis (WBC)
4: Yunier Dorticos (WBA)
Then from 1-4, the fighter was allowed to pick or draft his opponent from a group of 4 boxers, for their first round fight. (An exception was made for Gassiev, who had a mandatory against Krzysztof Wlodarczyk. That fight was picked for him)
The first round of the tournament looks like this.
Oleksander Usyk (12-0 10KO) v. Marco Huck (40-4-1 27KO)
Murat Gassiev (24-0 17KO) v. Krzysztof Wlodarczyk (53-3-1 37KO)
Mairis Briedis (22-0 18KO) v. Mike Perez (22-2-1 14KO)
Yunier Dorticos (21-0 20KO) v. Dmitry Kudryashov (21-1 21KO)
Literally the best of the best in the Cruiserweight division will be competing against each other, until one is standing with all the belts, the inaugural Muhammad Ali Trophy and possibly a $1 million dollar bonus for advancing though semifinals and the championship round.
The tournament is slated to begin in early September and rap up by Mary of next year. The location of the fights have yet to be determined and will be placed in locations that match up well for each fight.
“To unify a division and spotlight a division that has clearly been underappreciated, even though the fights in the ring are always among the most exciting in the sport, irrespective of the division, that those four champions, if you look at the record – they are all undefeated. Most of their wins, the vast majority have come by knockout. So these are all big punchers, undefeated. I’m really excited,” said Richard Schaefer, the Chairman of the Americas for Comosa, who helped put this field together alongside fellow promoter Kalle Sauerland (the Chief Boxing Officer for Comosa).
This is a very exciting tournament for boxing and especially for the roll out of the new World Boxing Super Series. With formats like this, expect many division to start falling in line and possibly getting to see the best match up against the best in the near future.
