Arthur Biyarslanov was just four years old when the war came.
In August 1999, Chechen rebels invaded neighboring Dagestan, where Biyarslanov and his family lived, with the goal of establishing an independent Islamic republic. The following month, a series of apartment bombings in Moscow killed more than 300 and injured more than 1,000; Russian president Vladimir Putin blamed Chechen rebels for the attacks and used them as a pretext to invade Chechnya, several years after Russian troops had been forced to retreat from the region following a ceasefire agreement that terminated an earlier conflict.
Not wanting to be caught up in the violence, Biyarslanov’s family crossed the border into neighboring Azerbaijan.
“You know, when you're young, you don't really have much memories,” junior welterweight contender Biyarslanov, whose birth name was Movladdin, told BoxingScene this week. “I have some memories playing around with family and friends, but the one biggest memory that I have is when we were crossing the border, when the war started, just shooting and bombing and soldiers throwing me around, carrying me, running away to a safe zone with me.”
Six years later, his family moved again – this time all the way to Toronto, Canada. It was, Biyarslanov admits, a major culture shock.
“I didn’t know where this place was, to be honest,” he recalls. “So far away in the West. I came here, I didn’t know English, I didn’t have any friends. It was like a new life, new chapter, and it was probably at the hardest part of my life, because I just turned 10 years old when I got here.”
And because children everywhere are almost universally horrible to anyone who is even slightly different, the new kid with the Russian accent inevitably became a target of mockery, although Biyarslanov – who recently upped his record to 18-0 (15 KOs) with a second-round stoppage of veteran Mohamed Minoune – can’t say for certain whether it was that or something more fundamental that caused him to take up boxing.
“You got kids obviously trying to pick on you. You don’t know the language. But I always had a different mentality. I didn’t get pushed around too much,” he recalls.
“I think maybe it's in the blood. We just have a fighting back background, you know. And me and my brother, we always wrestled when we were young, and would just play fight at home. So I guess I knew some basics.”
His elder brother, however, was in his teenage years when the family emigrated to Canada, “and when he first came, he was getting into a fight every day.”
It was he who decided they should both learn boxing for self-defense. But at first the younger Biyarslanov wasn’t exactly enamored of the sport.
“I really didn’t like boxing, because it’s a sport you don’t learn overnight,” he says. “You need to practice, practice. It takes months and years. And then here I am getting thrown into sparring, and I’m getting hit, and I’m getting beat up by someone that looks weaker than me, or someone that’s smaller than me. And I would get frustrated.”
In time, however, he not only became functional, he started to excel, developing a name for himself in the amateur ranks and competing in the 2016 Olympics, where he reached the round of 16 before losing to Artem Harutyunyan.
He turned professional in December 2018; by the end of the following year, he was 5-0 with 4 KOs, but for the next several years, progress slowed as he averaged just two outings annually, far too few for someone at the start of their pro journey.
“I was getting so much time off,” he says. “I didn’t have stable fights. I didn’t have a time frame telling me, ‘OK, you know what, you’re gonna fight in two months, in three months.’ Instead, it was more like a fight every four months, you know? And then that fight gets canceled, and then another. And that’s why I was working in between camps, because I didn’t know when my next fight would be. And you don’t get paid until you fight. So it was very difficult.”
That changed when he signed with Eye of the Tiger Management early last year; since then, he has fought five times, culminating in his February win over Minoune.
“It is very professional here,” he says of his new partnership. “They tell me, ‘You're gonna fight in two months,’ or in three months, or whatever. And then they give me an opponent. In 11 months I had five fights, which is great for me. I have momentum. I want to stay busy. My fights are ending quick, so why not keep fighting as much as I can?”
Outside of a ten-round decision win over Jonathan Eniz in October, Biyarslanov has indeed been finishing his evenings early: in three rounds against Tamas Kiliti, four against Elias Haedo, three against Cristian Palma. Despite his KO ratio and his lean, muscular frame, he sets about his prey patiently, working close but stabbing opponents with a stiff southpaw jab until he sees an opening, and then striking with often concussive finality – a paced offense that, he says, has roots in the two contrasting styles on which the younger Arthur sought to model himself.
“When I was younger, I really liked Mike Tyson and Roy Jones, two different styles,” he says. “One powerful guy just knocking people out. The other one, just toying with you, playing with you, speed skills, crazy. And I could kind of relate to both of them, because I would sometimes imitate Mike Tyson in sparring and sometimes I would imitate Roy Jones, like moving around. And I had a soccer background, which really helped my footwork, and I was able to kind of switch up styles, which I think a lot of boxers can’t do. They just have one style of either moving forward or moving backwards, but I feel like I'm all rounded and I could switch up styles if I need to in the fight. Which is, I think, a big bonus.”
Following the Minoune knockout, and with Eye of the Tiger keeping him active, Biyarslanov has made his first appearance in sanctioning body rankings, coming in at 15 on the latest WBC list.
He is, he says, more than ready to begin climbing upward.
“I want to fight one of the top guys,” he says. “You know, 140 pounds is very hot. Anyone in the top 15 is good. If I could get a fight with one of these guys, that would throw me in the mix and prove that I belong there. And then hopefully, eventually I could get a title fight, you know. It doesn’t matter who it is. I’m ready to fight anyone. There’s Teofimo Lopez, Devin Haney, Ryan Garcia, I don’t know who else is there. There’s so many. Anyone of these guys.
“I want to fight for a world title before this year ends. I’m going to be 30 years old, I’m just reaching my peak now, and I feel like I’m almost there.”
Kieran Mulvaney has written, broadcast and podcast about boxing for HBO, Showtime, ESPN and Reuters, among other outlets. He presently co-hosts the “Fighter Health Podcast” with Dr. Margaret Goodman. He also writes regularly for National Geographic, has written several books on the Arctic and Antarctic, and is at his happiest hanging out with wild polar bears. His website is www.kieranmulvaney.com.