THUNDERSTRUCK
The dream of Daniyar Yeleussinov was threatened during a bloody Olympics before he rebounded to claim gold. That medal could have set up an easy life at home but, as John Dennen explains, the Kazakh has opted for an altogether more difficult route
“Kazakh Thunder” Yeleussinov is not content with an easy life back home
HE’S not Gennady Golovkin, he’s a very good boxer though. For years leading up to the last Olympic Games, Kazakhstan’s Daniyar Yeleussinov was regarded as the finest amateur boxer, at any weight, in the world. He won the World championships in 2013, becoming the boxer of the year for two seaons running from then. A blip in the 2015 World championships saw him only win silver there. The following year he was back on form, leading a strong Kazakh team into the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. He was the picture of a perfect boxing team captain. Square-jawed, the solid side-parting in his hair scarcely shifting out place as he beat a competitive Josh Kelly and Venezuela’s Gabriel Maestre.
His momentum came to a sudden, violent halt in the 69kgs semi-final. Yeleussinov and France’s Souleymane Cissokho crashed head first into one another. At once Yeleussinov stepped back and turned away. The split in the skin was ugly. The force of the impact opened a deep cut, one that tore a jagged route halfway up his forehead.
The weight of the pressure, of the expectation was on him then. He leant forward, bending over wearily before the referee had even intervened. He knew the bout had to stop. It was an accident, he knew it would go to cards and he must have known he would win.
But simply getting to the final was now the least of his concerns. Yeleussinov had to win. “I felt a responsibility. Before me there were three fighters in the same weight class who became Olympic gold medallists from Kazakhstan. That’s why people now say that welterweight, it’s a Kazakh division. That’s why it was a huge responsibility. I want to be the next one,” he told Boxing News. “I was captain of the national team, it was a big responsibility, a lot of pressure.”
For the last 12 years Kazakhstan had ruled the Olympic welterweight division. Before him Bakhtiyar Artayev had won gold in 2004 (when Golovkin was winning his silver medal), Bakhyt Sarsekbayev won the 69kgs gold in 2008, Serik Sapiyev won gold and boxer of the tournament at London 2012. Now it was Yeleussinov’s turn. “Yes of course, so it was a tradition that I showed that this is a real Kazakh
weight class,” he said. The cut was grim. It would have to be stitched under the skin (the stitches were removed again for the final). Paper stitches held it together on the surface and his coaches in the corner smeared a lump of Vaseline over it. In normal circumstances he wouldn’t have been allowed to fight. But this was the Olympic final. He simply had to step through the ropes. There was however an added risk. If a punch reopened the cut to such an extent that he couldn’t continue, he would lose by stoppage. An Olympic final is never easy, especially not under these circumstances and especially not against Shakram Giyasov. The Uzbek team were brutally strong, relentless attackers and fearsome punchers. Giyazov was at the heart of it. In the quarter-final he beat Cuba’s brilliant Roniel Iglesias. In the semi-final he defeated Mohammed Rabii, the man who’d upset Yeleussinov in the World championships the year before, hurting him at times. Yeleussinov had that marauding force coming after him, and he had to keep that deep cut clear from the punches as best he could. “That changed my tactic and strategy for the fight. Now I need to be elusive, so I tried to not get hit. That cut changed my strategy. Not too much but a little bit,” Yeleussinov said. “Because this is a final of an Olympic Games, of course every opponent there is tough, and I had a cut by that time that’s why I wasn’t so confident. But Giyasov was confident because he had no injuries, no cuts, no nothing and if he would get me one time he can win the fight. That’s why it was a huge double responsibility for me. That’s why we changed a little bit the strategy. I tried to be more elusive.” He shifted his head from side to side, slipping punches. On his toes, he darted back, giving Giyasov ground. Gladly the Uzbek filled ³
the space, swarming forward, swinging gleefully. Anxious, Yeleussinov manoeuvred round him, holding out his southpaw jab out, lancing his back hand left through. The clear shots were enough. By the third round he could chance trading with the Uzbek. He had the unanimous decision. He won the Olympic gold. He’d won every bout to get there unanimously.
“Everybody in Kazakhstan was very happy. Plus the Olympic champions in Kazakhstan are some different sportsmen actually. They always respect them, they meet them. People watch professional boxing there too, we have [Vassiliy] Jirov, he was a professional boxer, he was a champion of the world but after that he lost. Now we have “GGG,” everybody talks about “GGG” but a gold medallist for them is still a more respectable person. They’re like the heroes in Kazakhstan,” Daniyar said.
Gennady Golovkin has been vastly successful, unifying professional world titles. He is a huge star in his homeland, of course. But still Yeleussinov noted of his countrymen, “They’re more interested in Olympic boxers and the Olympic Games.”
He didn’t have to turn professional after Rio. He didn’t even have to continue boxing. Serik Sapiev, his immediate predecessor, for instance is already highly placed in the sport’s administration in his homeland. But Yeleussinov wasn’t content to walk away from the sport.
“Actually it’s a hard decision always. You must think what to do. Retiring from amateurs and that’s it, or I’m going to professionals. So it’s always a dilemma, you don’t know what to do,” he said.
“Because again in Kazakhstan, the people respect Olympic medallists. That’s why for me to work somewhere, do some stuff, it’s not a problem. But I still chose to be a professional boxer.”
His path was about to take an unusual turn. Ziya Aliyev had been a careful observer of Yeleussinov’s career. An Azeri, he had seen Daniyar in the 2011 World championships in Baku, before Yeleussinov was an Olympian and before he shot to international prominence.
“He wasn’t maybe big at that time but he had a talent, I saw that. His reflexes, his speed. He’s smart. Real smart. When we were watching his sparring, or some fight, it’s like chess. He’s playing chess with his opponent,” Aliyev told Boxing News. Ziya had a vision for a professional career that he presented to Yeleussinov, not a straightforward task. “An Olympic gold medallist in Kazakhstan is like a hero. Like you don’t even need to turn professional. Everything’s fine. They respect you. You’re like a king,” Aliyev said.
Their next task was to go beyond Kazakhstan. They called promoter Eddie Hearn. “Eddie Hearn’s something new. He will bring something new in boxing, fresh air,” Aliyev said. “I saw what he did with Joshua. That was brilliant. It’s not only about the belts. But he made him a global star. He made Joshua well known in the world. That’s why I thought he can do a great job with Daniyar.”
It was an unexpected pairing. Matchroom promotions, based in Essex,
I HAD A CUT AND I WASN’T SO CONFIDENT... IT CHANGED MY STRATEGY”
is a long, long way from Astana. But they are on the cusp of a significant expansion, setting up a wing in the USA and signing a lucrative deal with DAZN, a major streaming service to broadcast in the States. Hearn sees that as the platform for Yeleussinov in the future. “He’ll be a major part of our DAZN stable,” he said. “He’ll fight on our first US card in September and probably in October. I expect him to be 5-0, 6-0 by the end of the year and after that I can see him just going for it.”
Yeleussinov is only two bouts in. He took a stoppage victory in New York before boxing at York Hall in London. It’s too tempting to label a highly talented, and highly touted, Kazakh amateur as the new Golovkin. Against Zoltan Szabo in Bethnal Green, Yeleussinov did not look like a merciless knockout artist. Szabo was 24-11, not a bad opponent for a second fight at all, but Yeleussinov relied on single shots. While he controlled the “Stickyman,” he still needs to adapt to professional boxing. Joining new trainer John David Jackson will help that. But it will be a process.
“He has to do his apprenticeship. At least six fights before we start moving him to titles,” Hearn said. “Because I see him working and I see him sparring, I feel as though I could see him have great fights now with the world champs at welterweight. [But] I know he’s got a lot to learn in the pros.”
Aliyev points out that it took Golovkin himself a while to make it. “It took five, six, more years for GGG to become GGG, for Golovkin to be Golovkin,” Ziya said.
He is confident Yeleussinov will come to be appreciated. “In Kazakhstan they have a lot, a lot of good fighters. In all those past Soviet Union countries, they love technical boxing. In the United States they don’t like technical boxing, they like just knockouts and that’s it. That’s why in Great Britain they love technical boxing too because they have a great amateur team, they have a great amateur system that works for them. That’s why people love boxing. They love boxers who like to box. Most other fighters they’re just fighters. They’re going to fight but not box,” Aliyev said.
Yeleussinov has spent a lifetime perfecting his technique. From a fighting family, he followed his brother to the gym when he was seven, started sparring, a little, at eight, had his first contest at nine.
“Step by step, I started to box,” he said. “This is the Soviet Union school, the system is the Soviet Union system, everything’s the same in the amateurs. But my father was my private trainer. You can’t be like others. You’re an individual fighter. We have some tricks, some things that my father gave me.”
Step by step he expects to work his way up the professional ranks. “I hope next year, the end of next year, he will fight for some belt,” Aliyev said. “I hope that if everything goes as we planned, next year he will be champion of the world.”
Yeleussinov respects the professional sport. “If they’re on that level, they’re very strong, very tough fighters. They did a great job to be there,” he said, but promised solemnly, “My time will come.
“I will meet all the champions.”
I FEEL AS THOUGH HE COULD HAVE GREAT FIGHTS NOW WITH THE WORLD CHAMPIONS”