By Alexey Sukachev

Former long-time WBO lightweight champion, and one of the icons of the post-Soviet boxing scene, Artur Grigoryan, is now training heavyweight contender Denis Boytsov (31-0, 25 KOs), who recently dominated American veteran Dominic Guinn (33-9-1, 22 KOs) over ten rounds in Cologne. Grigoryan shared his thoughts with the German press about Boytsov (WBC #2, WBO #3, WBA #4 and IBF #5) and a possible future challenge to one of the Klitschko brothers.

“Denis earned a workmanlike victory. But the fight showed us perfectly several things that we shall work on in the future. The fight was hard luck for us: something wasn’t going well, some tiny details were missing, such as finding the right distance. We are aiming at the champion, who sees all of our blemishes and who punishes [his challengers] badly for any mistakes. We can’t win a fight boxing this way. We should be very liquid and agile like a young version of Mike Tyson”.

Waldemar Kluch (the new director of the Universum Box-Promotion) has stated that a fight with Vitali Klitschko, the WBC champion, will take place later this year, possibly in September - but Grigoryan feels his boxer needs a few more fights.

“I’m against fighting Vitali in September. The end of the year is a different story. We shall fight once or twice more, and Denis will be much more prepared. Those fights will be crucial for a proper training camp. It happens sometimes that against an average fighter you do look unspectacular. And then you knock out a much more renowned boxer in two, three, four rounds. It all depends on determination. And against the champion Denis will be very motivated," Grigoryan said.

Vitali Klitschko, on the other hand, wasn’t very fascinated with the idea of facing Boytsov in the near future. In an interview with his official portal, Klitschko advised Boytsov to wait for his turn.

“We are getting offers from all type of contenders, challengers and pretenders on a regular basis. Everyone wants to be a champion, and that sounds good. We shall discuss Boytsov’s chances as soon as he becomes a contender. Right now, those rumors are just speculations."