By Alexey Sukachev

German Titov, promoter of Dmitry Pirog, shared several interesting thoughts with Konstantin Ustyantsev (“Championat.ru”) about the WBO middleweight champion’s future plans and gave some details on March 26 show in Ekaterinburg.

About Pirog’s future opponent: “Chances for Ishe Smith to become an opponent for March 26 are zero-like. It was our desire to fight Smith but WBO hasn’t approved him as he is out of the ranks. The only slim hope is that Smith’s promoter Lou DiBella will contact WBO headquarters and kindly ask the officials to turn on green light. However, that seems very unlikely.

Argentinean prospect Javier Francisco Maciel (18-1, 12 KOs), who is ranked #9 in latest WBO ratings, is the most likely possibility. We have nothing to do with that but to agree as another postponement definitely isn’t an option. Personally, I consider the Argentinean to be the best possible opponent for Pirog of those who are ranked by the WBO. Surely, some stars, which are ranked ahead of him, are stronger and much more interesting but it’s incredibly hard to sign them. Maciel is a strong fighter, one who will give our champion a stern test. The only problem is that this fight is pretty much expensive for us but we don’t intend to postpone the show for the second time”.

About the undercard, “It’ll be of a stellar quality. Felix Diaz vs. Yuri Nuzhnenko fight is 80% confirmed. We are also close to bring our heavyweight hope Vyacheslav Glazkov (8-0, 6 KOs) and former WBA world title challenger Owen Beck (29-7, 20 KOs) into the same ring. Another Ukrainian heavyweight Alexey Mazikin (16-5-2, 3 KOs) will oppose Czech Ondrej Pala (28-2, 20 KOs) for a vacant WBO European title. Rising light heavyweight star Sergey Kovalev (12-0, 10 KOs) is set for his next fight. And a total number of seven bouts are scheduled”.

About Pirog’s subsequent plans, “We are lining up a huge year for Dmitry Pirog, presently the best Russian fighter around. Maciel is close to be set for March. In June we are planning (preliminarily) a collision with Dmitry’s compatriot and WBO #1 Gennady Martirosyan (21-2, 10 KOs). It can be held in China where several partners are interested in staging such a fight. It’s useless to arrange this bout overseas as American fans aren’t aware of Martirosyan and it would be hard to sell this clash. Finally, in September we hope to make a return on HBO against a stellar-quality boxer”.