Oleg Alexandrovich Maskayev

Oleg Maskayev
Data
Birth Name	Oleg Alexandrovich Maskayev
Fight name	The Big O
Weight class	Heavyweight
nationality	Russian US-American
birthday	March 2nd 1969
place of birth	Djambul
style	Left delivery
size	1.91 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	46
Victories	39
Knockout victories	28
Defeats	7th

Oleg Alexandrowitsch Maskajew ( Russian Олег Александрович Маскаев ; born March 2, 1969 in Jambul , Soviet Union ) is a former professional boxer and former world heavyweight champion of the WBC.

Life

Maskayev was born in the Kazakh SSR as the son of Mordovian parents, his father was a steiger , he himself also worked briefly in mining and then became a lieutenant in the army. He has lived in the USA with his wife and four children since 1999 and has been a US citizen since 2004. He also became a Russian citizen in December 2006.

amateur

As an amateur, Maskayev won 108 fights with 10 defeats and was two-time amateur champions of the Soviet Union . Among other things, he won the gold medal in the super heavyweight division at the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima . At the Amateur World Cup in Tampere in 1993 , he lost to the Cuban Roberto Balado , who then won the tournament. At the 1994 World Cup tournament in Bangkok , he lost again to Balado in the final after defeating Willi Fischer in the semifinals . He won as an amateur in 1990 at a Soviet army amateur tournament prematurely against an injured Vitali Klitschko .

Professional career

The beginning of his professional career was extremely unusual. Already in his pro debut on April 17, 1993, he won by technical knockout in the third round against the bronze medalist of the Olympic Games from 1988 Alexander Miroshnichenko , who was unbeaten at that time in 21 professional fights.

He then continued to fight as an amateur until 1995. In 1995 he moved to the USA and finally turned pro. With only six official fights, he took on the former WBC World Champion Oliver McCall on February 24, 1996 , was caught off guard and lost to a technical knockout in the first round.

After only four more fights, he met David Tua . After an even fight, however, he had to accept his second premature defeat by technical knockout in the eleventh round.

On November 6, 1999, there was a duel with Hasim Rahman . Rahman was able to develop advantages in the course of the fight and was clearly leading on points. In the eighth round, however, Maskayev was able to hit Rahman so hard and effectively that he buckled backwards unconscious, fell out of the ring through the ropes and finally hit his head on the hall floor. In this special case, instead of the usual ten-second counting down after a knockdown, the boxer has up to twenty seconds to appear in the ring ready to fight again. Rahman was counted irregularly at ten by the referee, but this had no effect, as the knockout due to the impact with the head was so severe that Rahman remained lying for a long time to be examined by the ring doctor in this position. Rahman subsequently stated that he completely underestimated Maskayev after watching the recording of the McCall fight.

Afterwards he won against the world class man Derrick Jefferson prematurely. Maskayev then competed against the Canadian Olympian Kirk Johnson , who was undefeated but was considered an outsider after the spectacular KOs Maskayev. But Johnson punched out the then Kazakhs and knocked him hard in the fourth round. A pattern had been established, Maskayev either won by knocking out or he was knocked out. So he lost his next fight against Lance Whitaker by knockout in the second round, it was Whitaker's only success against a world-class heavyweight.

The impression that Maskayev was on the decline was reinforced by another premature defeat to the untrained American Corey Sanders (not to be confused with the South African Corrie Sanders ).

He then changed coach (Victor Valle junior, whose father Gerry Cooney trained) and management (Cooney manager Dennis Rappaport as promoter; Fred Kesch as manager) and surprisingly found himself back on the road to success for many.

He beat the unbeaten silver medalist of the Olympic Games of Atlanta David Defiagbon and 2005 in an eliminator of the WBC association also Sinan Samil Sam on points. By beating Sam, he became the mandatory challenger of Hasim Rahman, who has now been declared WBC world champion.

On August 12, 2006, after a relatively even fight, he defeated this again, by technical knockout in the twelfth round, and at the age of 37 he became the second oldest boxer after Jersey Joe Walcott , who won a world title for the first time.

His first title defense on December 10, 2006, he won in Moscow against the clearly inferior and once counted Peter Okhello from Uganda unanimously on points. Two judges scored each round in favor of the world champion after he clearly dominated the increasingly weaker Okhello towards the end. Okhello get hardly any hits, in the tenth round he was knocked to the ground by Maskayev after a series of blows. Nevertheless, to the disappointment of many spectators, he could not defeat the clearly inferior opponent prematurely. The day before, Maskayev had received Russian citizenship from Vladimir Putin .

His next fight was to deny Maskayev on October 6, 2007 against the Nigerian challenger Samuel Peter in Madison Square Garden. However, he canceled this fight on September 21st due to a herniated disc . The winner of this fight should compete against former title holder Vitali Klitschko, who also suffered a herniated disc in September 2007 and had to postpone his comeback. On March 8, 2008, there was finally a duel with Samuel Peter in Cancún, Mexico . This was also the first World Heavyweight Championship fight in Mexico . Maskayev, now 39, lost to a technical knockout in the sixth round.

As a result of legal disputes in connection with Maskayev's fight against Peter, among other things because of the division of the combat exchange and Peter's interim world champion status, the WBC ordered in December 2008 that Maskayev should receive a title fight against Vitali Klitschko by June 30, 2009 at the latest. Klitschko, however, successfully sued the International Court of Justice for Sports (CAS) because he had to complete a compulsory defense against the Cuban Juan Carlos Gómez in March 2009 .

Oleg Maskayev, who had won two development fights in the meantime, should then play an elimination match against Ray Austin in the spring of 2010 to determine the next mandatory challenger for the WBC title. On December 11, 2009, the 40-year-old Maskayev fought in Sacramento , a fight planned as a further reconstruction fight, against the 23-year-old Nagy Aguilera from the Dominican Republic . Maskayev lost the fight and with it the chance to participate in the elimination match for the WBC title after two knockdowns by technical knockout in the first round.

Web links

• Oleg Maskayev in the BoxRec database
• Amateur fight against Klitschko (English)

predecessor	Office	successor
Hasim Rahman	Heavyweight Boxing Champion ( WBC ) August 12, 2006 - March 8, 2008	Samuel Peter