Former WBA and IBF world champion Murat Gassiev finally decided to please his fans again with his appearance in the ring and is actively preparing for the fight with 42-year-old American Carlos Welch. The fight is scheduled for August 26 and will take place on neutral territory in Belgrade.

The bookmakers call the Russian the clear favorite of the confrontation, not at all doubting his victory. A similar picture could be observed before Murat’s meeting with an opponent from Ukraine. Gassiev then lived up to expectations – he did not leave his opponent a single chance.

The champion was not ready for revenge.

Repeatedly beaten Ukrainian

In May 2013, in the Mordovia sports complex, young, hungry for victories and, importantly, undefeated Murat Gassiev met in the ring with a repeatedly beaten and not too young Ukrainian Igor Pilipenko. During his long professional career, a native of Zaporizhzhya celebrated a victory only six times, twice reduced fights to a draw and lost 54 times. By the time of the second meeting with the Russian, the statistics were somewhat better, but in any case they did not cause much enthusiasm.

However, boxing was not the only sport discipline for the Ukrainian. Igor performed much more successfully in kickboxing – he won the world and European championships among amateurs, was the world champion among professionals. Without kicks, Pilipenko turned out to be not so dangerous in the ring, as statistics eloquently testify. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian readily accepted almost any challenge in boxing, helping his opponents hone their skills and improve their track record.

Igor Pilipenko / Photo: © Boxing Academy

Murat Gassiev at the dawn of his career easily dealt with the Ukrainian and went ahead for new victories. Having dealt with Pilipenko, he won in six subsequent fights, and only once did it come to the verdict of the judges. It would seem that a boxer from Ossetia needed a serious opponent, but someone came up with the idea to arrange a rematch with a beaten Ukrainian.

Although there was still a certain incompleteness here – in the first fight, Murat knocked Pilipenko down already in the first round, but it never came to a knockout. Now Gassiev had the opportunity to force the enemy to capitulate.

Nerves couldn’t take it

The repeated meeting of Gassiev and Pilipenko in the ring warmed up the evening of boxing in Saransk. In the eyes of the fans, Murat was not yet a significant figure, for which it is worth going for a spectacle. Boxing fans were waiting for promising lightweight Fedor Papazov to enter the ring. They expected to see former WBC world champion Oleg Maskaev in action. The main event of the evening was the duel with the participation of the undefeated, but now somewhat forgotten Russian middleweight Andrey Meryasev, who won a duty victory by defeating the Mexican Alvaro Gaona.

As for Gassiev, for many local fans he was just a young boxer, whose prospects, despite good statistics, were still extremely vague. Murat himself hardly considered himself a boxing star at least on an all-Russian scale. By the way, at that time he took only the Ossetian flag into the ring, holding the white-blue-red tricolor for future victories.

Pilipenko, by the way, was not puzzled by any flags or other national symbols at all. Therefore, for the audience in the hall, their confrontation with Gassiev had absolutely no political overtones. In Saransk, just two boxers met face to face – a young promising and an experienced unpromising one. Where they came from and under whose banner they act – all this was secondary.

Despite the seemingly obvious alignment, Pilipenko tried to intrigue at the start, but it did not last long. Having endured the first attack, Gassiev decided to remind his opponent of the strength of his blows, and he quickly drooped. By any legal and semi-legal means, Igor began to avoid open combat. The Ukrainian ran around the corners, clinching his opponent at the first opportunity, and at times even lifting him up.

A rare attempt by Pilipenko to cut himself ended in failure for him – he flew off the ropes, the referee recorded a knockdown. In the fourth round, the judge restarted the countdown, but this time it worked out. The Ukrainian boxer was not going to give up, although Gassiev’s blows became more and more dangerous for him.

Murat Gassiev during an open training session / Photo: © Russian Boxing Federation

In the end, the nerves could not stand the second, who threw the towel into the ring. Igor at that moment was on his own two feet, and could well have resisted Murat for some time. But the referee followed the letter of the law, and therefore hastened to recognize the Russian as the winner of this fight. Boxing fans who wanted to see the knockout blow whistled in frustration. Many did not understand the meaning of the revenge – the Ukrainian was absolutely not ready to fight for victory.