For Osleys Iglesias, his journey to pro boxing began with a broken promise.
He plans to culminate it by keeping a promise of his own.
Iglesias was just 21 years old when he made the trip to Cologne, Germany for the 2019 World Boxing Cup. The four-day tournament attracted some of the world’s best boxers from across Europe and Asia and was an opportunity for Iglesias – born in Havana, Cuba - to show he could win at the highest level heading into an Olympic year. The head trainer of the Cuban team gave him an additional incentive just before the tournament began.
“He told me, ‘If you win the gold medal, you can be the face of the amateur boxing team,’” Iglesias to BoxingScene.
Iglesias did just that, never dropping a scorecard in four straight fights to win the gold, defeating future Olympic bronze medalist Gleb Bakshi along the way.
What should have been his statement-making achievement to that point turned to disappointment as soon as Iglesias walked down the ring steps.
“They told me, ‘You're too young to be the face of the boxing team,’” said Iglesias.
That was the last thing he wanted to hear. “I’m not somebody that likes to be on standby and not be able to do my thing,” he added.
At that point, he put in a call to his mother, Belkiz, back home in Cuba and told her what his plans were.
“It was a really difficult conversation. It’s really hard to describe. It was really sad,” said Iglesias of him telling his mother that he was not coming home, and would be staying in Germany to begin his professional career.
“It was one of my hardest goodbyes, but I knew that I was going to see her again. But I wasn't expecting it to be this long, six years without seeing her.”
Iglesias promised his mother that, the next time they saw each other, he would be a world champion. Now 27, Iglesias, 13-0 (12 KOs), will take his biggest step towards that goal when he faces former world title challenger Vladimir Shishkin this Thursday at Montreal Casino in Montreal, Canada.
The fight, which will be broadcast worldwide on punchinggrace.com, is an eliminator for the no. 1 ranking with the IBF at 168lbs.
Shishkin, 16-1 (10 KOs), represents more than just a symbolic hurdle. The 34-year-old Russian boxer, who now makes his home in Miami, is coming off a close decision loss to William Scull last October in a fight for the vacant IBF super middleweight belt.
Had Shishkin gotten the decision - which many felt could have gone his way - it would have been Shishkin instead of Scull fighting Saul “Canelo” Alvarez this year in a mega-million-dollar unification fight in Saudi Arabia.
Promoter Camille Estephan of Eye of the Tiger Management (EOTTM) calls Shishkin “the perfect opponent” for Iglesias at this point, and says they are very familiar with how dangerous Shishkin could prove to be.
“Shishkin is one of the only guys that can hang with Artur Beterbiev in camp, he's one of his main sparring partners,” said Estephan. “Iglesias can really shine if he comes up with a big performance and wins.”
“He’s going to try to use his experience against me,” Iglesias surmises, keeping his cards close to his chest. “I can’t guess what he brings to the table. But I have an idea of what type of fighter I have in front of me.”
There likely isn’t any style of boxer that Iglesias hasn’t yet seen in the ring.
Iglesias first started boxing at age 7, and made the Cuban national team at age 15. He had over 200 amateur bouts, competing in Thailand, Russia, China and India, while beating the likes of future world champion David Morrell in domestic competition.
After defecting from Cuba, Iglesias admits he struggled to adapt to his surroundings, such as the reliance on Google Translate for most communications. He linked up with trainer Georg Bramowski, whose wife speaks Spanish, and within five months had made his professional debut in Germany.
After three quick wins in Germany, the COVID-19 pandemic kept him out of the ring for nearly two years, at which point he resumed fighting in Poland. Iglesias lodged four wins in 2022, including a twelve-round unanimous decision win over former title challenger Isaac Chilemba, which was the first and only time so far Iglesias has been forced to go to the scorecards.
Estephan says it was Marc Ramsay, director of boxing development for Eye of the Tiger, who first put Iglesias on the company’s radar. After signing Christian Mbilli, the company looked at the landscape at super middleweight to identify potential threats.
“Iglesias was the only one that we felt like, if we have to fight this guy, it really has to be for all the marbles,” said Estephan. “And we tried to connect to make the deals.”
The company signed Iglesias at the end of 2023. Thursday will mark his fifth straight fight in Quebec - four of which will have been at the Montreal Casino. Estephan says there were less than ten individual tickets left on sale as of Sunday, which he says is an indication of how popular Iglesias has become locally.
“There's a buzz around him, because the feeling is that he's the best we’ve signed apart from Beterbiev and [Christian] Mbilli, and his upside seems bigger than anybody we've seen before,” said Estephan. “He's got crazy power, he's very lean, he's tall, he's lanky. He has tremendous boxing skills. He’s from the Cuban boxing school, but he's extremely aggressive.”
It helps that Iglesias isn’t your typical safety-first Cuban boxer. Iglesias hopes he can be the one to change the perception of boxers from the Cuban system.
“I think about it in my head all of the time. I could be that guy. I could be the one to change it,” said Iglesias.
So far, Iglesias, who has a daughter and now makes his home in Berlin, Germany, has learned the essentials in French: “bonjour”, “oui”, “merci beaucoup,” enough to order some poutine on Rue Sainte-Catherine.
With two of the highest ranked contenders in the super middleweight division, the company has focused Mbilli’s path on the WBC route, and Iglesias with the IBF.
EOTTM secured a WBC interim 168lbs title opportunity for Mbilli, who took care of the rest with a first-round stoppage of Maciej Sulecki this past June. His first defense of that belt will come against Lester Martinez on September 13 undercard of the Alvarez-Terence Crawford card in Las Vegas.
With Iglesias attempting to earn a title opportunity through the IBF, EOTTM has doubled their chances of securing a blockbuster fight with the Alvarez-Crawford winner.
Iglesias believes he will get an opportunity against whoever emerges with the belts.
“Whoever doesn’t have an opportunity has to go and chase it, and that's the way I think,” said Iglesias. “He's going to give me an opportunity to fight him, and I feel like it's going to be sooner than later.”
Iglesias isn’t just motivated by fortune and glory. He hasn’t forgotten the words he spoke to his mother when he made that fateful decision in Germany six years ago. Though he speaks to her regularly over the phone, he knows a championship win would give him the influence and resources he needs to reunite with his mother in person.
“I don’t want to rush things. I want to go according to plan. I know that I’m going to see my mother sooner or later. And now I have a daughter, so I want to set a good future for her too,” said Iglesias.
“My daughter is my engine and my mother is my heart.”
Ryan Songalia is a reporter and editor for BoxingScene.com and has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler, The Guardian, Vice and The Ring magazine. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at ryansongalia@gmail.com or on Twitter at @ryansongalia.
