You probably never heard his name until he was announced as Joe Mesi's next opponent last week, but if past performances are any indication, Vassiliy Jirov won't be easily forgotten.
Jirov isn't the biggest opponent Mesi has faced during his climb up the heavyweight rankings, or the best-known.
He's a much better match than the significantly bigger name rumored as Mesi's spring foe. Jirov is also the unbeaten Tonawanda native's toughest foe to date. And he's shown a tendency to display that durability in rather spectacular fashion.
Jirov brings a 33-1 record with 29 knockouts into his scheduled March 13 meeting with Mesi, but it was that one loss that attracted the HBO Boxing honchos who made the match.
Last April, in his seventh defense of the IBF cruiserweight title, Jirov lost the belt to former middleweight and super-middleweight champion, and current heavyweight contender, James Toney. But only just.
The two staged an epic battle that made almost every "Fight of the Year" list, topping many of them. Jirov, constantly moving forward, seemed to dominate the early rounds with relentless body work. Toney's equally persistent counterpunches upstairs and down didn't stop, or even slow, Jirov's charge, but slowly turned the momentum.
Toney did much of his damage with rights to the head, finally dropping Jirov late in the 12th round, when most ringside observers thought the outcome still very much in doubt.
Jirov got up, but the knockdown sealed the decision for Toney.
Max Kellerman of ESPN called the bout "the second greatest cruiserweight fight of all time," trailing only the 1985 war between Evander Holyfield -- yes, he's really been fighting that long -- and Dwight Muhammad Qawi.
Toney stepped up to heavyweight and destroyed the thoroughly shot Holyfield less than six months after his win over Jirov, firmly establishing himself as an unlikely heavyweight contender before an Achilles injury sidelined him until late spring.
Jirov went back to work immediately, scoring two stoppage wins over quality cruiserweight foes in the next six months.
Toiling in the cruiserweight division, the neglected stepchild of the sport since its inception in the late 1970s, has contributed to Jirov's relative anonymity. Boxing's ruling bodies created the class to give fighters a stopping-off point between the light-heavyweight limit of 175 pounds and the behemoths who roam amongst the heavies.
Most fighters suited to the cruiser limit, which has ranged between 190 and 200 pounds depending on the sanctioning organization in question, go straight to the bigger money available by fighting bigger men. But the cruisers are big enough to carry serious power, without tending toward the flab and sloth that too often turn heavyweight bouts into stinkers. The top cruisers may not get many national endorsements, but they can fight. Jirov is no exception.
A native of Kazakhstan who not only won the light-heavyweight gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, but was named the outstanding fighter of the tournament, Jirov makes an ideal fighter for television: a solid puncher -- though he lacks devastating power -- with a strong jaw and a seemingly unbreakable will.
While Jirov may not represent an immense step up in competition, the sort of leap that Mesi's doubters demand, their meeting on the undercard of the junior middleweight title unification bout between Shane Mosley and Winky Wright marks another definite step forward.
It will be Mesi's third straight appearance on HBO, firmly establishing him as the darling of boxing's top network, and his first bout in Las Vegas, the sport's Mecca for nearly 30 years.
His opponent also rates as a television favorite, thanks to his wide-open style.
The big question about Jirov is whether the skills that made him the consensus pick as the world's top cruiserweight before the Toney fight, and had him in line for a bout with Roy Jones Jr., will transfer to the heavyweight ranks.
His only previous venture into the sport's big-money division came in July 2001, a week before Mesi stopped Bert Cooper at the former Niagara Falls Convention and Civic Center. During a break between defenses of his cruiserweight belt, Jirov won a 10-round unanimous decision over Adolpho Washington, himself a slightly inflated cruiserweight contender.
Utilizing an array of body punches, head butts and well-placed elbows, Jirov wore down his older opponent. He only put Washington on the floor once, with a blatant second-round butt that the referee incorrectly ruled a knockdown. Thanks in part to such hands-off officiating, Jirov won via near-shutout on all three judges' cards with what Steve Gregg of BoxingTimes.com called "a performance worthy of a feisty billygoat on the rampage."
Jirov's tendency to lead with his head and willingness to follow a punch with an elbow makes him a particularly troublesome foe for Mesi, who has fought through cuts and swelling around his eyes in several fights, capped by the Rocky-like ballooning of his left orb against Monte Barrett in December.
Mesi had trouble adjusting to Barrett's awkward style, particularly after the underdog switched to a southpaw stance midway through. While Jirov is less a boxer and more a brawler, his aggression will force Mesi to adjust accordingly.
That, ultimately, is what this fight is all about from Mesi's perspective. Barrett pushed him far closer to defeat than he had ever been as a professional, and how Mesi reacts in his next fight will hint at what the immediate future holds.
Obviously, Mesi needs an impressive win to continue his upward momentum, but not an easy one. Another quick blowout, like the half-round demolitions of Robert Davis and DaVarryl Williamson, would only serve as fuel for critics who claim he's fattening his record, now at 28-0 with 25 knockouts, on a steady diet of the barely ambulatory and equilibrium-challenged.
Which brings us to Michael Moorer, the former two-time heavyweight titlist and, until the Jirov fight was announced, the smart-money pick as Mesi's next opponent.
Moorer ranked as one of the top heavyweights of the 1990s. He beat Holyfield for the WBA and IBF titles in 1994, only to lose both to George Foreman in the fight that launched a million fat-reducing grills.
Moorer rebounded from the devastating one-punch loss to Big George to regain the IBF crown in 1996 and defended it twice before surrendering it to Holyfield. Moorer displayed incredible heart against Evander, getting off the floor five times before the referee stopped it in the eighth.
That fight took place on Nov. 8, 1997, a milestone in the careers of both men. In the ensuing six-plus years, Holyfield hasn't stopped an opponent in nine tries, earning a decision against only three of them. Moorer, meanwhile, took three years off before staging a comeback. He's 7-1-1 since, but that's not nearly as impressive as it sounds.
The only loss was a 30-second blowout defeat against David Tua. The draw came against Dale Crowe, dismissed as too feeble a foe for Mesi. And the biggest name he's beaten was Robert Davis. Yes, that Robert Davis. It took Moorer 10 rounds to produce a decision win against the same guy who lasted one minute and 20 seconds with Mesi.
Moorer was a top-flight heavyweight, even though his best performances had to be coaxed out of him by former trainer Teddy Atlas. Between the late rounds of one title defense, Moorer returned to his corner to find Atlas seated on his stool, seemingly talking on a cell phone. Atlas, who still trains fighters while not serving as an analyst on ESPN2's "Friday Night Fights," held the phone out and said, "It's your little boy. He wants to know why his daddy doesn't want to be champion anymore."
If Moorer was a reluctant champion then, he's a thoroughly shot ex-champion now.
Beating him would give Mesi a former world titlist on his resume, but wouldn't do a thing to make him a better fighter.
And at this point, that's the only thing that matters. While the fight won't answer questions about how Mesi will fare against the giants presently ruling the division, he should beat Jirov. If he doesn't, it'll take quite a bit of climbing to regain the No. 4 position in the WBC rankings he currently holds.
But it doesn't figure to be easy, and it certainly won't be boring.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | February 3 2004 |