Roach and Provodnikov Reflect on Saturday

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This past Saturday, HBO boxing put on a good night of boxing as it saw a new champion, Chris Algieri, crowned the new WBO Light Welterweight Champion after 12 grueling rounds of punishment from the man he took the belt from, the Siberian Rocky, Ruslan Provodnikov. After the event was over, Provodnikov, as well as his trainer, Freddie Roach, spoke about the controversial split decision, a possible rematch between the two, and the possibility of a different site.

When asked about what he felt about the fight and how the judges saw it, Provodnikov replied, “I did what I promised, I said I was going to give my all and I said I was going to put up an exciting fight. The judges saw it the way they saw it and that’s up to them, but I think I did what I promised. I think you guys can be the judges. To me it feels like he was running all night and just jabbing. You can see the way I look and the way he looks. To me I don’t see how you can win the fight just running all day.” Roach chipped in my saying, “Power punches win fights. He maybe out-jabbed us, but power punches, it was 1000-1, we landed most and that’s why I think we deserved the fight.”

Even though Provodnikov looked agitated by the decision, he did say, “I won’t let this loss get to me. We all saw what happened. This is not the 1st time this has happened to me”, but then continued on to say,”HBO gave like nine more rounds to me. One of the judges gave like six or seven more rounds to me and the local judges give it the other way. On top of that his eye was closed. It’s dangerous to fight like that, he could have gotten killed. If my eye was like that, they would have stopped the fight in the round it started closing. I think it’s not fair.”

Provodnikov was then asked if this style was a troublesome or bad for him to matchup with. “Yes, I said that this was not the best style for me because I start falling asleep when they guy is just running all night. I’m catching him and he’s just running and running. If I was fighting today and if I just started boxing him, you guys would be falling asleep. So I did what I had to do, I put the fight to him, and I made it exciting. I was the only one that made this fight exciting”, said Provodnikov.

Provodnikov continued to speak on this fight with Algieri, as well as his other recent fights, saying, “He was getting beaten up all night. This is another opponent of mine that’s probably going to the hospital right now, as (Tim) Bradley did. They go to the hospital as champions? I don’t see that. I don’t think it’s fair. Lately in boxing there has been a lot of unfairness in my fights and I do not like that a lot. I’m a little disappointed with that. I don’t see how you can take somebody’s belt by going to the hospital and running all night.”

When the question regarding a rematch was asked, Provodnikov responded, “I think in this situation it would be fair to have a rematch because in my opinion justice should be served. Overall if he doesn’t want to fight me, luckily in this division there are so many opportunities, there’s many fighters that I can fight. We’ll see what HBO will offer me or what opportunities I’ll have where I can fight. You know that I’m ready to fight anybody, anytime.”

Roach then spoke alluded to the fact that local judging could have been the cause of the decision. He mentioned that the two judges from the area gave Algieri the win, but the 3rd judge from out of state, as well as HBO, had it the wide margin for Provodnikov. Then Roach said, “We’d like a rematch, maybe Vegas or somewhere in a neutral area.” When Roach was asked why he decided to fight in NY in the 1st place, Roach said that it was a good offer and a good situation with him being in NY the previous week with Miguel Cotto.

Provodnikov has now lost two controversial decisions in the US, so when asked about his mindset when fighting in America, Provodnikov said, “I don’t think I lost this fight. Every time I come to America, my mindset is, to win I have to knock the guy out. It’s been like that all of my career, not just now. So there’s nothing surprising, but it’s nothing bad, in my life, its god testing me in a way, part of what I have to go through in my life. It is what it is.”

I personally had the fight 114-112 Provodnikov. It was a fight that saw a dramatic switch of momentum in the middle rounds. No matter whom you had winning the fight, the scene of Algieri’s team crying and hugging each other after the decision was announced by Michael Buffer was something out of a storybook. It’s another reason that we love the sport of boxing, the characters within the sport, and the reason boxing will never be dead.