Thursday, April 10

ATLANTIC CITY – It’s spring-break season in the US, but Atlantic City, New Jersey, is atypically cold. What already represents the bleakest and most run-down of cities is even less appealing as a consequence of the chilling winds that are as difficult to avoid as the joylessness that exists throughout its sparsely populated casinos.

If the streets that paint so unavoidable a picture of hopelessness are at even greater risk of decline as a consequence of Donald Trump’s gambling with America’s economy, the city’s Boardwalk Hall will perhaps provide a sense of escapism and substance to its residents when, on Saturday, Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Eimantas Stanionis contest the IBF, WBA and Ring Magazine welterweight titles. More relevantly, for Uzbekistan’s Shakhram Giyasov, it may prove – and it is to be hoped that it will – the most cathartic haven of all.

The understated nature of both Ennis and Stanionis perhaps made it inevitable that the arrival of Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn on Thursday in Atlantic City to promote “Claim the Crown” would transform the nature of the occasion.

Hearn separately described two fighters on the same undercard as “the future of the sport” and “the next big star of American boxing". He also promised that the main event would prove the “fight of the year” and be “a 10,000 sellout". That Ennis was playing sudoku on his phone from the top table of that same press conference would no doubt also have made it easier for a charismatic promoter to have such an effect.

By a considerable distance more striking, however – and to the extent it provided an arresting reminder that much of what he had been saying was trivial – was Hearn discussing the picture of the career of Giyasov.

The 31 year old is the mandatory challenger to the WBA title held by Stanionis, and has been told that he can therefore be expected to fight the winner of Saturday’s main event. He fights Argentina’s Franco Ocampo on the undercard, and does so less than a month after the tragic death of his infant daughter.

Giyasov was already on course to fight on Saturday, but he is demonstrating bravery above and beyond that of even those recognized as the toughest of fighters by remaining committed to the same fight date. He has also already spoken of promising her that he would become a world champion, and by extension perhaps explained the sense of duty with which he will fight.

“This fight is for my daughter,” Giyasov said, in broken English in a video released by Matchroom. “Of course, for me it’s very bad, because I love her. I miss her. I promised my daughter – I promised my parents – I want to be world champion.”

“We spoke to him, and he wanted to carry on fighting,” Frank Smith, Matchroom’s chief executive, told BoxingScene. “He didn’t want to pull out of the fight.

“It’s difficult to understand anyone’s mindset if you haven’t been through it. Everyone’s going to have a different position with it. His focus now is to win a world championship. He was committed. He wanted to fight, he wanted to focus himself on the fight, and that’s what he’s doing.

“We want to do what’s right for him. We spoke to his team, and he’s in charge. Our job is to deliver for him and be there for him around these tough times. No one can really understand what he’s going through apart from him. We’re all just here to support him as best as possible.

“The fact he’s here and he’s focused on going ahead shows everything about him. We would have supported him with any decision he made. You have to completely respect the man he is and the decision he’s made to go ahead with this fight.”

It is little secret that the retirement of the late and popular Arturo Gatti – much like that of Matthew Saad Muhammad before him – further undermined Atlantic City’s economy. There hasn’t been a focal point for its fight scene since the decline, in the late 2000s, of Kelly Pavlik. Giyasov won’t prove capable of succeeding Pavlik, but Ennis – of nearby Philadelphia – might, and in the event of victory for them both, Giyasov could prove his next opponent. In the bleakest of places and in the bleakest period of life, the most painful part of Giyasov’s existence is giving him strength, and perhaps cause for hope.