Shavkat Rakhimov will meet dangerous Filipino Charlie Suarez

One of the most famous domestic fighters Shavkat Rakhimov in his next fight will meet with a dangerous Filipino Charlie Suarez. The victory over him will help Rakhimov come close to the featherweight champion title (up to 59 kg), which he recently owned and which he lost under dramatic circumstances, losing in an absolutely equal match to Briton Joe Cordina.

The fact that Shavkat Rakhimov will fight his next fight against Charlie Suarez, the head of the promotional company RCC Boxing Promotions, which works with a boxer born in Tajikistan, but who has been living and training in Russia for a long time, German Titov told Allboxing.ru. For Rakhimov, this fight will be the first after a very upsetting defeat that he suffered in April.

It deprived Shavkat Rakhimov of the featherweight champion title, which he reached after going through many difficult moments in his career. For the first time he was close to him at the end of the last decade. In 2019, Rakhimov effectively knocked out the strong South African fighter Azinga Fuzile in a match, which was positioned as a qualifying match, for the status of a contender for the then vacant title of the International Boxing Federation (IBF). A fight for him between Rakhimov and Japanese Kenichi Ogawa was even announced, but it was suddenly canceled due to Ogawa’s injury. However, in February 2021, Shavkat Rakhimov still entered the championship match. It took place in California’s Indio, and Rakhimov’s opponent was the classy American boxer Joseph Diaz, who had an emergency. At the weigh-in, Diaz could not meet the category limit and lost his belt. But in accordance with the IBF regulations, Rakhimov could get it only if he won against Diaz, who, despite the incident, was allowed to participate in the match. Following the results of 12 rounds, one of the three judges recorded the minimal advantage of Diaz, and the other two – a draw, which became the official result, leaving the title vacant. Later, he went to Kenichi Ogawa, and last summer passed into the hands of the British Joe Cordina, who coped with the Japanese, who made a meteoric rise.

IBF obligated Joe Cordinu to defend the title in the match against Shavkat Rakhimov. However, it soon became clear that due to surgery on the injured hand, the champion would not be able to perform for a very long time. Having lost patience, the IBF stripped Cordina of the belt, giving him the opportunity to claim it after his recovery. The title was declared vacant, and Rakhimov’s rival in the fight for him became another Briton is Zelfa Barrett. Shavkat Rakhimov fought with him in November last year, winning a spectacular victory. In the third round, Rakhimov survived the knockdown, but recovered, and in the ninth, he forced the opponent’s seconds to recognize Barrett’s defeat.

In April of this year in Cardiff, that is, in fact, on a foreign site, Shavkat Rakhimov finally met with Joe Cordina. The fight turned into a huge drama.

In the course of it, both opponents were in the most difficult situations, in fact, on the verge of a knockout, but continued to cut brutally until the final gong. One of the three judges gave the win with a serious – 116:111 – advantage to Rakhimov, but the other two considered that Cordina took the upper hand with a small margin.

Success in the match by Charlie Suarez will allow Shavkat Rakhimov to get closer to the title again. According to German Titov, it is a kind of semi-final of the tournament with a contender’s status at stake: in the second, the Irishman Anthony Cacache and the Dominican Eduardo Nunez will meet. Rakhimov, of course, got an extremely dangerous opponent. Suarez is already 35 years old (he is six years older than the opponent), but it’s too late, only in 2019, the boxer who started his professional career is perceived rather not as a veteran, but as a rising star with a decent set of spectacular victories: the Filipino has 15 of them in a row. And his quotes are evidenced by the fact that in July the famous promotional company Top Rank signed a contract with Charlie Suarez, who always meticulously selects clients.

Alexey Dospekhov