By Ian Aldous: Gary Russell Jr. (23-0) stands on the verge of a guaranteed world championship fight in 2014. A wealth of amateur wins and medals at U.S championships, world championships and junior Olympics, as well as an unbeaten professional career thus far, have prepared him for this impending opportunity. The 2008 Olympic games were the sole low-point of his life as a boxer to date. Last week Gary took some time to talk with me ahead of an exciting year for himself and his team.
As previously mentioned, Gary was a standout amateur performer, capturing a 2004 junior Olympic games gold medal and in 2005 he won both the U.S championship and Golden Gloves at the tender age of sixteen. A bronze medal at the 2005 world championship followed as well as more national titles. Qualification for the 2008 Olympic games should have been the pinnacle for Gary but unfortunately he failed to make weight and didn’t fight at the tournament. “I got sick and never got diagnosed with the reasons why I’d gotten sick. It was more of a cover-up. There was a lotta people getting sick and I wasn’t the only person. When it happened to me, they put it out like ‘I dehydrated from trying to make weight’ and that wasn’t the case at all.”
Then came the decision that most boxers have to make at the end of an Olympic cycle – stay amateur and aim to qualify for the next games at London 2012 or turn professional? After the brutal way in which he missed out on actually competing at Beijing in 2008, it looked like neither was an option. “I didn’t even wanna box anymore after that. It felt like everything I’d worked for was down the drain.” Luckily he got over the disappointment and joined the pro ranks. A lot is said about the differences between the amateur and pro games, but Russell Jr. adapted very well. “It was pretty easy. The only thing I had to deal with was the change of gloves. I didn’t worry about the headgear but the gloves side of it made a difference.”
So far in his paid career he’s defeated everything put in front of him. Rightly or wrongly, the standard of competition he’s faced so far has been criticised as not being worthy of genuinely testing his skills. It’s something the twenty-five year old is not concerned about. “I don’t care about it at all. I’m the only one who’s in the ring competing against these guys and the ones that’s talking about ‘I’m not fighting someone’ (it’s because) they can’t beat them themselves (laughs).”
It shouldn’t be forgotten that he is still seven months from turning twenty-six and at such a young age has plenty of time to develop in the coming years. He’s just enjoying being in a ring doing what he loves doing. “Hell yes, most definitely. Most definitely I’m a student of the game.” The career path chosen by his team is something he’s very happy with. “It’s perfectly right on time, right on schedule. We wanted to get to 22 (or) 23-0 before we competed for a world title. I’m 23-0 now. We’re looking forward to getting one of these world titles in 2014.”
It was announced last month that Gary is now mandatory challenger for the WBO featherweight title. The man that currently owns that particular portion of the world title is Orlando Salido. The top level of competition and Salido in particular do not appear to intimidate Russell Jr. “I think the guys that everyone thinks is supposed to be amazing are gonna be the easiest fights for me. I think Salido’s a good fighter in his little element but I’m a completely different monster. He’s one dimensional. I don’t think that he brings anything to the table that is a possible threat (to me), you know. I guess you can say that he’s strong and he punches hard but it doesn’t matter. He’s one dimensional, he’s slow, he’s lethargic.”
With all the politics that is part and parcel in the territory of boxing, nothing is ever a certainty. It looks likely that a man with just one professional fight to his name will be getting the first shot at Salido and his WBO title, that man is two-time Olympic champion, Vasyl Lomachenko. “We’re still not sure if we’re gonna fight Salido because he’s about to fight the European kid (Lomachenko) who only had one fight. Salido’s fighting Lomachenko, so whoever wins that will have to fight me by March 2014 for the WBO world title.”
So, what does he think about Vasyl jumping the queue and getting a title fight after less than twelve minutes as a pro? “I definitely think it’s a bit extreme. I honestly didn’t watch him fight. He only has one (pro) fight, I’ve never seen him fight before. So, if he wins, then we’ll gather footage and prepare for the fight. I don’t think it matters, I don’t think there’s a person on the planet that’s in my division that can beat me. (There’s no-one) that brings what I bring to the ring, speed and one-punch knockout ability (check out his fight with Roberto Castaneda on youtube for evidence of his one punch KO ability). Everything that a fighter needs – I feel like I possess it. Even if he does win (against Salido), we’ll find a way to beat him.”
Earlier this year in The Ring magazine, a quote was attributed to a certain Gary Russell Jr. stating that Abner Mares is a fighter ‘tailor-made’ for him. This was prior to Mares being stopped inside a round by Jhonny Gonzalez and bringing all his momentum to a standstill. Despite that defeat, Gary does have sympathy for him. “It’s boxing, it’s not like Abner just got beaten up on for twelve rounds. He got caught in the first round, the fight didn’t really get started and it happens. It’s definitely a loss but I don’t think that you can really hold it against him. Anyone can get hit. He got hit early and got hurt, he didn’t really get a chance to recover from it.”
This lead me to the inevitable question. Do you still think that Mares is ‘tailor-made’ for you? “I’d be as equally confident as I was before the knockout (loss). He’s still a good fighter and you can never take that away from him. everything will be very calculated when we compete against him. I don’t believe that he can deal with my hand speed or my punching ability.”
In his previous but one fight against Vyacheslav Gusev, a compubox fight record was set when Gusev landed just thirty-three punches – the least landed in a ten round fight in compubox history. The only negative spin on such a defensive masterclass was that Russell Jr. fractured his left hand in the fight. “When I threw the punch, I caught him directly on the head and I felt all knuckle. I couldn’t really sit down on the punches like I wanted to. If I could have then I’d have got him up outta there. It showed my resoluteness as a fighter. It showed my mental composure. It was clear that my hand was hurt to the fans and to the fighter (Gusev). I held it down, kept everything in line and continued to win the fight.”
He continued to discuss the hand injury. “I don’t believe that it’s 100%. We fought again after that (a unanimous decision win over Juan Ruiz) and had a chance to see what the hand was like. It comes with the territory man!” Suffering an injury like that to the most important tool a boxer has – his hands, must make you think twice about loading up on a big left hand? “A little. It does. It’s the equivalent to stepping on a piece of glass (laughs) and you know you took it out but you’re still afraid to really step down.”
Last weekend we saw a 2008 Olympian fulfil his professional destiny when Demetrius Andrade captured the WBO light-middleweight title. Don’t be surprised to see another member of that Olympic team capture another WBO belt in 2014.
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