Vasily Shirov

Vasily Shirov
Data
Birth Name	Vasily Valerejewitsch Shirov
Weight class	Heavyweight
nationality	Kazakh
birthday	April 4th 1974
place of birth	Balqash
style	Legal display
size	1.88 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	40
Victories	36
Knockout victories	30th
Defeats	3
draw	1

Vasily Valerejewitsch Schirow ( Russian Василий Валерьевич Жиров ; born April 4, 1974 in Balqasch , Kazakh SSR , Soviet Union ) is a Kazakh boxer of Russian origin.

amateur

As an amateur, Shirov won 207 fights with only ten defeats. At the age of 16 he became a Kazakh master. In 1992 he won the European Junior Championships in Edinburgh while still playing for the CIS and prevailed against Sinan Şamil Sam in the final . In 1993 he took part in the Amateur World Championships in Tampere and finished third in the middleweight division. He then rose to the light heavyweight division, but failed again in the semi-finals at the 1994 Asian Games . At the next amateur world championship in Berlin in 1995, he lost to Antonio Tarver in the semifinals and was again third.

In 1996 he won the gold medal in the light heavyweight division for Kazakhstan at the Olympic Games in Atlanta and was awarded the Val Barker Cup as the technically best boxer of the games. He beat Julio González in the first round , then met Tarver again in the semi-finals, but was able to defeat him this time. In 1995 and 1995 he also won the Chemistry Cup in Halle (Saale) .

Professional career

He turned pro in 1997, relocated to the US and has lived in Scottsdale , Arizona ever since . His professional debut took place on January 18, 1997. He got into the ring a total of eleven times that year and won each time early.

In 1999 he became IBF cruiserweight title holder through a technical knockout victory against Arthur Williams. By 2003 he was able to successfully defend the title six times.

On April 26, 2003, however, he lost his belt by losing points to James Toney . In the twelfth lap, Schirow had to go down, and a point was deducted from him because of a low blow in the eighth lap. He then rose to the heavyweight class.

There he met Joe Mesi on March 13, 2004 and was defeated just on points, although he was able to beat Mesi three times in the last two rounds to the ground. In his next fight against former world champion Michael Moorer , he suffered a defeat by technical knockout, the first of his career. At the time of the cancellation he was clearly ahead on points. Then he returned to the cruiserweight division and was only able to box in a draw in 2005 against the 39-year-old ex-cruiserweight title holder Orlin Norris . In 2009 he ended his professional career.

Web links

• Wassili Schirow in the BoxRec database
• Wassili Schirow in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

predecessor	Office	successor
Arthur Williams	Cruiserweight Boxing Champion ( IBF ) June 5, 1999 - April 26, 2003	James Toney