Artur Grigorian
Courtesy of http://uzland.info/
When we talk about Asia we typically think of the Orient rather than Central and Western Asia. Despite this it's fair to say that the non-Oriental Asia has given us some genuinely tremendous fights and fighters over the years including “King” Artur Grigorian (38-1, 23), unarguably the greatest fighter from Uzbekistan and one of the premier amateurs of the early 1990's.
Born "Atuiz Grigorjan" in 1967 in Tashkent, then part of the Soviet Union, to Armenian parents Grigorian has links to being Armenian, Soviet and Uzbek. In the 1960's of course none of those countries really had any sort of professional boxing icons to look up to. Thankfully Grigorian took up the sport and was one of the leaders in the development of boxing for all 3 areas becoming one of the top German based names of the 1990's.
Grigorian began boxing when he was an 11 year old child and started making his name around a decade later when he began picking up notable tournament victories including silver medals in back-to-back soviet championships (1990, 1991) and a Gold medal at the 1990 Goodwill games, beating American Shane Mosley along the way.
The success in the lower level tournaments grew more success for Grigorian who would compete at the 1991 World Championships where he claimed a Silver medal losing to talented German Marco Rudolph in the final after having beaten Hong Sung-Sik of Korea in the second round. Unfortunately however this Silver medal was the highlight of his amateur days as he was defeated by Hong in the second round of the 1992 Olympics and beaten at the same stage in the 1993 World Championships by Frenchman Nordine Mouchi.
Born "Atuiz Grigorjan" in 1967 in Tashkent, then part of the Soviet Union, to Armenian parents Grigorian has links to being Armenian, Soviet and Uzbek. In the 1960's of course none of those countries really had any sort of professional boxing icons to look up to. Thankfully Grigorian took up the sport and was one of the leaders in the development of boxing for all 3 areas becoming one of the top German based names of the 1990's.
Grigorian began boxing when he was an 11 year old child and started making his name around a decade later when he began picking up notable tournament victories including silver medals in back-to-back soviet championships (1990, 1991) and a Gold medal at the 1990 Goodwill games, beating American Shane Mosley along the way.
The success in the lower level tournaments grew more success for Grigorian who would compete at the 1991 World Championships where he claimed a Silver medal losing to talented German Marco Rudolph in the final after having beaten Hong Sung-Sik of Korea in the second round. Unfortunately however this Silver medal was the highlight of his amateur days as he was defeated by Hong in the second round of the 1992 Olympics and beaten at the same stage in the 1993 World Championships by Frenchman Nordine Mouchi.
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Having run up a reported 361-23 amateur record Grigorian turned professional in 1994. Based in Germany Grigorian set off fast like any top former amateur should. After just 4 bouts Grigorian had already claimed the German International Lightweight title and within a year of his professional debut he had also added the WBO Inter-Continental Lightweight title having quickly run up 11 victories with 7 of those coming by stoppage.
Grigorian continued his busy schedule of fights and following his victory to claim the WBO Inter-Continental he would run 7 more victories inside a year, defending his title once to help him keep a high WBO rating. The high WBO ranking of Grigorian helped him earn a chance at the WBO world Lightweight title after American superstar Oscar De La Hoya vacated the belt to campaign in the Light Welterweight division. Grigorian took his world title chance and stopped former IBF Featherweight Antonio Rivera in the 12th round to take the WBO world title. As the world champion Grigorian went on an amazing run of defending his belt, making a total of 17 defenses between 1996 and 2004. These included notable victories over Marty Jakubowski, the then unbeaten Marco Rudolph (avenging the loss in the amateurs), the then unbeaten Michael Clark, the hard hitting Antonio Pitalua, Italian Stefano Zoff and controversially Poland's Matt Zegan. Having been a world champion for over 7 years Grigorian had stapled his name to one of the longest title reigns in Lightweight history, unfortunately for the Uzbek his reign came to an end in what was his US debut. A year after taking a highly controversial victory over Zegan, Grigorian fought Brazilian Acelino Freitas and Freitas really put a beating on him, dropping him numerous times to take a wide decision victory and the WBO. Like all good fighters Grigorian didn't want to go out on a loss and returned to the ring 8 months after losing to Freitas to fight in a relatively easy comeback fight defeating Vasile Herteg by 4th round stoppage to move his career record to 37-1 (23) just weeks before his 37th birthday. Surprisingly in 2009 Grigorian returned to the ring for a one-off comeback bout defeating Bulgarian Kirkor Kirkorov, who like Grigorian had actually claimed a medal at the 1991 World championships almost 20 years previous. This bout would be Grigorian's final professional contest. Following his retirement Grigorian has turned to trainin and has helped train former Middleweight title holder Sebastian Zbik, current Heavyweight title holder Alexander Povetkin and highly rated Cruiserweight Rakhim Chakhkiev amongst others. Aged 45 “King Artur” may be very excited to think about the way he helped Uzbek boxing as well as Armenian boxing and of course Soviet boxing in general. Their may only have been one other Uzbek champion, Ruslan Chagaev, since Grigorian's WBO Lightweight reign but with out a doubt the rise in Soviets is down to the likes of Grigorian, Orzubek Nazarov and of course Yuri Arbachakov who were all world champions in the 1990's. For those who haven't seen Grigorian in action the video below, thanks to rayrobinson333, shows Grigorian getting revenge on Rudolph in their professional meeting in 1998. The bout shows off the power and technique of Grigorian who was a heavy handed and accurate puncher who fought well out of the southpaw stance, and in his prime made few major mistakes. Unfortunately by the time he fought Zegan and Freitas it's fair to say that a long amateur career and father time were catching up on him. |
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