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World Champion Beibut
Shumenov's
Time To Shine Has Finally Arrived
Reigning World Boxing Association (WBA) Super and
International Boxing Association (IBA) Light Heavyweight
World Champion Beibut Shumenov (14-1, 9 KO's) celebrates his
fourth anniversary as world champion next month but he
really didn't arrive on the worldwide boxing scene until
this past December 14th in his SHOWTIME debut.
The 30-year-old Shumenov set a light heavyweight record for
capturing a world title in the fewest career fights, 10,
when he won (Jan. 10, 2010) a 12-round decision over Gabriel
Campillo in Las Vegas. Shumenov's fifth successful world
title defense was an impressive performance over previously
undefeated challenger Tomas "Tomi Kid" Kovacs (23-1, 14 KOs)
on "Danger Zone," headlined by Marcus Maidana's upset of
Adrian Broner, at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
Shumenov, the 2004 Kazakhstan Olympian who lives in Las
Vegas, dropped Kovacs at the end of round one with a
picture-perfect left hook to the European champion's chin.
The powerful Kazak briefly switched to southpaw in the
second round, decking Kovacs with a left uppercut, and
referee Rafael Ramos halted the fight at the 2:55 mark of
the third round after a battered Kovacs was knocked down for
the third time in the fight.
Although he hadn't fought in more than a year, Shumenov
showed little ring rust, if any at all, as he patiently
stalked Kovacs, who Shumenov expected to be aggressive from
the opening bell. "From watching some of his past fights,"
the 30-year-old Shumenov explained, "I expected him to come
forward and fight inside. I was prepared to counter him, but
he fought defensively and I had to set him up. I feinted a
lot more than in my past fights, moved better, and I
eventually got him.
"My goal has always been to unify and Golden Boy and
Showtime are going to give me that opportunity. We tried to
make a couple of unifications and different fights that for
one reason or another fell through. We tried to made
unification fights with [Nathan] Cleverly and [Chad] Dawson
when they held belts, but they weren't interested in
fighting me. I tried to unify with a scheduled fight against
[then WBO champion Juergen] Braehmer but he ran out of town
three days before our fight."
Aligning himself with Golden Boy and Showtime has positioned
Shumenov for a potential unification fight with
International Boxing Federation (IBF) Bernard "The Alien"
Hopkins, who has the same promoter and fights for the same
network as Shumenov. Hopkins attended Shumenov's fight in
San Antonio and went on record saying he wants to fight
Shumenov for both belts in late March or early April.
"Bernard Hopkins is a legendary fighter and it would be an
honor to fight him," Shumenov added. "He said he wants to
fight me, I want to fight him. If I had my choice of
unifying against any of the other world champions in the
175-pound division, I would pick Bernard Hopkins because he
is a six-time world champion who is headed to the Hall of
Fame. Hopkins already proved that age isn't an issue and
maybe he isn't human. The other two world champions, [WBC,
Adonis] Stevenson and [WBO, Sergey] Kovalev, only became
world champions this year and they haven't beaten opponents
at their peaks like Hopkins has so many times. Stevenson
beat Dawson after [Andre] Ward destroyed him and [Tavoris]
Cloud wasn't the same after Hopkins fought him. Kovalev won
his title from Cleverly, who I had been trying to fight for
a few years because he had been built up and had never
fought a top guy.
"I want to prove that I am the best 175-pound champion in
the world and the way to do that is to beat the other
champions. I think if fans really support having one world
champion in our division, maybe all sides can get together
to do a tournament with the winner of a fight between me and
Hopkins going against the Stevenson-Kovalev winner. It's
been done before."
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