KZBlog

A couple of articles came out recently about Beibut Shumenov, Kazakhstan’s boxing champion. In an interview with Fight Hype, Gabriel Campillo says he was robbed of victory over Shumenov in the title fight in Las Vegas and wants a rematch. Both the Spanish boxer and the interviewer seem to agree that Campillo clearly won the January fight, which was itself a rematch after a scandal in Kazakhstan last year. According to Campillo, Shumenov starts out strong and throws a lot of punches but tires himself out quickly.

Apparently though Shumenov has no desire to defend his past and is looking to the future to win another world title:

“I want a unification fight next,” Shumenov said. “I’m ready to fight any of the other champions now. (Jean) Pascal and (Tavoris) Cloud are both good champions and I’d love to fight either one. Throw in world champion Jurgen Brahmer, too. My goal is to unify the titles. I have a lot of respect for all of the other champions but I want their titles.”

“It’s unheard of, a fighter that wants one challenge after another so early in their career,” said Dan Goossen of Goossen Tutor Promotions. “But this is what boxing needs, the most competitive and biggest fights that can be made. The networks should ONLY be looking at these young champions to be facing off with one another. Beibut wants to give the fans want they want to see.”

Ambitious, shameless or crazy? In any case, Shumenov is the only Kazakh world champion in history. Aratoly Alexandrov, Oleg “Big O’ Maskaev and Vassily “The Tiger” Jirov are all from Kazakhstan, according to gazeta.kz but I assume by their names that they are ethnicaly not Kazakh. So Shumenov will probably have to screw up royally before Kazakhstan stops cheering for him.