Ryabinskiy Discusses Lebedev, Drozd and Chakhkiev

By Alexey Sukachev

After the yesterday’s Moscow presser was finally over, BoxingScene.com moved in for an exclusive talk with Andrey Ryabinskiy, well-known Russian businessman and a head of “World of Boxing” promotional company, which is the organizer of the double-whammy boxing extravaganza (Lebedev vs. Kolodziej and Wlodarczyk vs. Drozd). In a brief conversation, Mr. Ryabinskiy shared his opinion on the brightest part of his team – cruiserweights.

BoxingScene.com: “You are working with three world-class cruiserweights – Denis Lebedev, Grigory Drozd and Rakhim Chakhkiev. Will you ever match them up if they continue to win?”

Ryabinskiy: “That’s a very good and also a very difficult question to answer. I don’t want to even consider it right now. We have set certain goals and certain tasks must be accomplished before making any intrinsic collisions between the fighters from one team. The goal of our promotional company, which coincides with the goal of the Professional Boxing Federation of Russia, is to produce as many champions as we can – in every possible weight class. It so happened that we have three stellar cruiserweights, three great boxers in the same division. If they continue to be victorious then there’s a chance that all three of them will hold different titles at the very same time. After that – who knows?”

BoxingScene.com: “Piotr Werner has just said that his fighter (Krzysztof Glowacki) has taken an inside track for a fight against Marko Huck. Denis said that Huck is #1 on his hit list. What is indeed next in front of Denis?”

Ryabinskiy: “Denis wasn’t particularly lucky in his latest fights. The last “show” done with Don King, has hit him hard both mentally and emotionally. It’s too early to talk about Huck. First things first, and Denis should perform well against his next opponent from Poland. He has to restore and redeem himself from the mental standpoint, before moving on to bigger fights.”

BoxingScene.com: “Will Grigory Drozd’s fight against Wlodarczyk be the fight of his life? Will he have another chance if he loses to the defending champion?”

Ryabinskiy: “Yes, he definitely feels that way. He thinks it’ll be a fight of his life. It took him some time to persuade me to offer him this opportunity.”

BoxingScene.com: “What was the reason for your reluctance to give him this shot?”

Ryabinskiy: “A year ago, I honestly thought that he wasn’t ready for this”.

BoxingScene.com: “What changed?”

Ryabinskiy: “Grisha has changed intrinsically. He became better technically. He has developed into a versatile fighter, who sees the whole picture, who feels it, who knows how to control his own power. That was good to observe as it became more evident. With all of these components combined, we started to consider this fight more seriously”.

BoxingScene.com: “Your third cruiserweight gem is Rakhim Chakhkiev. He is now fighting Giacobbe Fragomeni for a vacant EBU title on the same card with Povetkin. Rakhim is rated #1 by the WBC. If he defeats the Italian veteran, and if Drozd overcomes Wlodarczyk, is there a chance they can collide in an all-Russian cruiserweight attraction?”

Ryabinskiy: “I can ensure you that they won’t fight each other at this stage of their respective careers. They will take different roads to world titles with different sanctioning bodies”.