By Alexey Sukachev

The Renaissance Hotel, not far from the “Dynamo” Ice Palace in Khodynka, Moscow, Russia, was a point of frenetic power, cloaked in nervousness and hardly hidden anticipation, as key figures for the Saturday major Russian vs. Poland doubleheader addressed some words to media in attendance.

Taking the central stage were: WBC cruiserweight champion and TBRB #3 cruiserweight Krzysztof Wlodarczyk (49-2-1, 35 KOs), his opponent and TBRB #7 Grigory Drozd (38-1, 27 KOs), WBA cruiserweight champion and TBRB #5 Denis Lebedev (25-2, 19 KOs), his opponent and TBRB #9 Pawel Kolodziej (33-0, 18 KOs), promoter of the event Andrey Ryabinskiy, Knockout Promotions heads Piotr Werner and Andrzej Wasilewski, and coaches Sergey Vasiliev (Drozd), Freddie Roach (Lebedev) and Fiodor Lapin (both Wlodarczyk and Kolodziej).

Krzysztof Wlodarczyk: “For the fourth time I’m here, in Moscow, and for the second time I’m here to fight. I’m positively pumped before this challenge. Grigory Drozd is a great boxer and I cannot express anything but respect to him. I’ll not underestimate him. I’m waiting for a very interesting fight, and I invite everyone to come and see it live”.

Grigory Drozd (looking a bit nervous): “I cannot behave as it’s just another fight. I’ve been waiting for it my entire career. I was ready for this chance long ago, years ago, and finally it comes in front of my dear fans. This fight means world to me. It’s a chance of a lifetime, maybe the last one as I’m already 35. I had a great camp, and I cannot let my team down.

I wish to thank Piotr and Andrzej for coming back to Moscow. I wish to specifically thank Krzysztof for giving me a chance to fight for the world championship. There are champions that become arrogant and ignorant after winning something. Krzysztof is different, he is very modest”.

“I promised my wife Yulia, that I’ll invite her for my championship fight. Here the fight is at hand, and I really hope Yulia will come and support me. I don’t know who will watch the fight, but I doubt my mother will. She will pray for me. However, a number of my childhood friends, of my neighbors from Kuzbass region will be in attendance. I know that the mayor of Prokopyevsk (Drozd’s city of birth) will also be here. I’ll have a strong team to back me up. I’ll never underestimate Wlodarczyk, as we’re preparing for a major war”.

Denis Lebedev: “I’m ready for a fight versus Kolodziej. I had a great camp overseas with Freddie Roach, Freddie is a great coach. He is like Russian, he has Russian mentality, and he is not your usual American. He is very father-like. I’ll call him “Batiok”. Those, who aren’t Russian, will hardly understand its meaning”.

“My wife won’t watch the fight live, only on a delay as she always does. But I’ll take kids with me: Danila, a son of my brother, and also my younger daughter. Surely, my father will be ringside, as he always does”.

Regarding the future plans, “Marko Huck is #1 on my hit list”.

Pawel Kolodziej: “I’ve been long preparing for such a fight and the chance to fight such fighters as Huck or Hernandez were unfortunately wasted. Now I’m in position for a great fight with a great champion, and I’m glad my team has negotiated it. Lebedev is a fascinating performer; he has impressed me enormously against Marko Huck, where I was in attendance”.

Andrey Ryabinskiy, “I’ve pre-planned it as a doubleheader. It wasn’t a final and primary goal, but those fights are getting along very-very well. There will be two feature bouts on Saturday, and I hope we shall reach our goal of producing the most competitive fights possible”.

Regarding the Don King lawsuit and its present status, “It’s not about something material, it’s not about money. For me this (lawsuit) is a matter of pride and ambitions, it’s purely a masculine issue – I’ll put it this way. Everyone is getting very upset when he is being fooled the way it has happened in a non-fight between Denis Lebedev and Guillermo Jones. I’m not an exception. I was also negatively surprised with the way we have been tried to be tricked. That was disrespectful. I just couldn’t get it because we were ready to pay the opposite team a huge purse, which is considerably larger than was Guillermo’s market share. And still they chose not to fight even for this huge money.

As for the lawsuit itself, I don’t know its present status. I’ve hired a team of very competent, world-class lawyers who are guiding the process. I fully trust them and I just want to hear the only thing, which I used to hear – that I won”.

Freddie Roach: “I don’t like lazy people. I like hard-working people, and Lebedev is that type of a sportsman. He is as diligent as Russian fighters usually are. We had a great camp in LA. Yes, there was a problem with an interpreter, but we both speak the language of boxing, and we understand each other this way. We are hundred percent ready for the upcoming fight against Kolodziej”.

Fiodor Lapin, “In my opinion, fighters presented here, at this table, are much better than the other two champions of this weight class – (Yoan Pablo) Hernandez and (Marko) Huck. A fight against Lebedev is Pawel’s fifth attempt at a world title shot. He was injured before the Hernandez fight, and the opportunity has gone to (alexander) Alekseev. He was also scheduled to face Ilunga Makabu twice, then Afolabi, and finally he is here on a world scene. He turns 34 in a couple of days, so it’s maybe his last chance”.

Regarding the verdict on Hernandez vs. Arslan, “You know in Germany no one know what is right and what is wrong. Just ask Denis. Borders of morale and justice are shifted there. I definitely think Arslan did a better job but, on the other hand, he has admitted afterwards he hadn’t won it. Who knows? Same when we sat together with Pawel on a fight between Denis and Huck. Denis was slightly better the whole fight. I told Pawel that he had to win the last couple of rounds decisively in order to have it. And that what Denis has done, and it wasn’t enough”.

Piotr Werner, regarding the possibility of Huck vs. Lebedev rematch next, “I have to say that here we have our WBO #1 cruiserweight Krzysztof Glowacki. We have an agreement with Sauerland Event, that in case of moving up in weight, Glowacki will be Huck’s next opponent before going further to the heavyweight division”.