Denis Lebedev's Manager Reacts To Kalenga's Protest

By Alexey Sukachev

It has been reported recently that WBA cruiserweight champion Denis Lebedev (26-2, 20 KOs) is all but set to defend his title against voluntary challenger Lukasz Janik (28-2, 15 KOs) on April 4 in Moscow, Russia. It appears now that the fight could still hit some obstacles related with WBA #1 and interim champion Youry Kayembre Kalenga (21-1, 14 KOs), who is interested in facing the champion as soon as possible and has written a corresponding petition to the WBA.

According to ringpolska.pl, which is citing Kalenga’s lawyer Pat English, there are several reasons for their petition. Firstly, Janik wasn’t even ranked by the WBA on January 19, when he was granted a title shot. Secondly, Janik wasn’t in the ranks on February 5 as well, when Team Kalenga applied for a purse bid. Thirdly, Janik wasn’t ranked up until Feb. 10, when he was granted with a ranking following a victory over barely relevant Franco Raul Sanchez.

Retaliating with some fire of his own was Lebedev’s manager, Vadim Kornilov, who was informed of Kalenga’s non-desire to fight in Russia, which makes the whole fight difficult to make.

“Kalenga tries to enforce this fight in the States. But Denis Lebedev and not Youri Kalenga is the champion," said Kornilov to R-Sport.

“We aren’t obligated to travel overseas for this fight. Kalenga has been given an assortment of reasonable offers to fight Denis in Russia, and he has rejected all of them, trying to push us out of Russia to the States. We are ready to discuss such an option but it will take at least a couple of months to reach even preliminary agreement. Meanwhile, Lebedev’s preparations have already started. Thus, we find it fair to be given yet another optional defense, and after that we'll fight Youri”.