by David P. Greisman
War continues on in Ukraine, a situation that seems impossible to ignore for the fighters from that country who are now competing elsewhere in the world. Sometimes it can be helpful to dedicate one’s self to work, to stay focused on another task at hand and try to take one’s mind away from death, devastation, turmoil and unrest.
That’s what heavyweight Vyacheslav Glazkov is seeking to do. He fought three times last year, outpointing Tomasz Adamek, taking a majority decision over Derric Rossy and stopping Darnell Wilson. The 30-year-old is now 19-0-1 with 12 KOs. He will face Steve Cunningham in Montreal on March 14 in a heavyweight elimination bout for the right to face the winner of April’s fight between champion Wladimir Klitschko and challenger Bryant Jennings.
“Of course it was pretty hard in the beginning. It was interrupting my training and my concentration,” he said on a Feb. 18 media conference call.
Prior to the Rossy fight, Glazkov had not had any contact with his parents for more than two weeks, according to a Main Events news release sent last October ahead of the Wilson bout.
“I don’t want to go deep into this, but I lost my grandma. She was killed in the street in one of the bombings,” Glazkov said. “But right now I am concentrated 100 percent. I’m not paying much attention to what’s going on. I am here. I am training. I am ready.”
Glazkov-Cunningham will be on the HBO-televised undercard to Sergey Kovalev vs. Jean Pascal.
Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide. Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com
