EVEN UKRAINIANS NOW FLOCK THE WILDCARD GYM
By Ed de la Vega, DDS
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 30 Jul 2010
Hollywood, CA.:- With the unprecedented and stunning success Freddie Roach as achieved with the transformation of the now great Manny Pacquiao from a one-dimensional and mostly left hand slugger to a pure fighter with tremendous power on both left and right hands, other boxers from different parts of the world are now flocking to his sweat shop in Hollywood.
At the beginning of the in-flow of other fighters to the Wildcard Gym, one would mostly see the Latinos coming in to train. Lately however, that has changed a lot. Boxers from other States started to come in bunches. Now even the Europeans are slowing but surely popping in at the gym. Boxers from Spain and the UK are now a common sight at the gym. And so are the Armenians. Of course, that is not to mention the Filipinos who like Pacquiao make the Wildcard Gym their home away from home.
The latest groups of boxers that now call the Wildcard Gym their home base are three Ukrainians.
First is WBA World Welterweight champion, Vyacheslav Senchenko. Senchengko who was born and raised at Kremenchug, Ukraine sports an impressive record of 30-0-0, 20 KO. He previously held the IBF Inter-continental welterweight title as well as the European External European Union (EBU-EE) welterweight and the WBA
Intercontinental Welterweight titles.
Senchengko captured the WBA World Welterweight crown in April 4, 2009 via a 12 round UD over Yuriy Nuzhnenko (28-1-1) at the Sports Palace in Donetsk, Ukraine. One of the judges in that fight was Raul Caiz Jr., of California.
Senchengko defended his crown last October 3, 2009 against Motoki Sasaki (23-7-1) and won via a wide UD with all the three judges scoring an identical 119-107.
Senchengko is slated to defend his crown again on August 30, 201 against Charlie Jose Navarro (18-3-1,13KO) in Ukraine.
The second Ukrainian training at the Wildcard is the undefeated super middleweight Stanislav Kashtanov. Stas, as they call him at the gym has a record of 27-0-0, 14KO.
He previously held the WBC Youth World Super middleweight crown which he won in April 17, 2007 via a 10 round UD over Mantas Tarnydas ( 12-1-0) He also held the EBU-EE Super middleweight crown which he won over Kanstantin Makhanku ( 13-17-0) in Nov 29, 2008.
Kastanow is slated to fight on the same card as Senchenko but his opponent to this day is still undetermined.
The third Ukrainian is Oleg Yetimovych. Like Kanstanov, he is a native of Donestsk, Uraine. Oleg is a WBO Intercontinental featherweight champion, having won the crown via a 12 round UD over Stanislav Merdov (20-5-0) last August 21, 2007. He won the
EBU Featherweight title in July 8, 2008 with a 12 round UD over Sergio Blanco with the judges scoring 118-110, 119-109, 119-109 for him. He has successfully defended this crown four times, a UD over Lucca Maggio (7-3-0), a UD over Osman Aktas (33-16-5),
a UD over Esham Pickering (34-8-0) and last February 2010 a UD over Andrei Isaeu (22-1-0) Yetimovych is slated to defend his crown for the 5th time against Sofiane Takoucht (19-9-1) also in August 10, 2010.
Incidentally, all three Ukrainians will be returning home not only equipped with what they learned fro Freddie Roach. They will also be sporting mouthguards we custom crafted for them.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ed de la Vega, DDS.
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