by David P. Greisman
Artur Akavov has been at middleweight from the time he turned pro in March 2011. His manager, however, believes it is time to move him down to junior middleweight.
“I think he’s going to do way better at 154,” said the manager, Alex Vaysfeld, in an interview with BoxingScene.com. “One of the reasons is there are more fights at 154, more money. He’s able to get bigger fights.”
He’s coming off the biggest fight of his career, a 12-round decision loss to middleweight titleholder Billy Joe Saunders. The defeat dropped the 30-year-old’s record to 16-2 with 7 KOs.
“It’s one of those losses where you come out a winner even though you lost,” Vaysfeld said. “Nobody ever expected him to be that kind of a guy, except us, and nobody knew who he was, and even Billy Joe Saunders picked him because he thought it was going to be an easy fight. The world got to see who Artur Akavov was. He got on the map.”
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