Vyacheslav Glazkov

Heavyweight boxing at the moment is dominated  by Ukrainians with Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko holding all the major titles and Alexander Dimitrenko currently holding the European title though it seems like they may well have one of the divisions next stars as well. Vyacheslav Glazkov is one of the fighters who is emerging, quickly as a real one to watch in the division and has the amateur credentials to back up the hype behind him.

Born in Lugansk in late 1986 Glazkov emerged as a top amateur in his late teens having won the World University Boxing Championship in 2004 as a Heavyweight before moving into the Super Heavyweight division the following year. Although he was unlucky in 2005 to run into the excellent Odlanier Solis at the World Amateur Championships he showed enough, as a teenager for some insiders to start to take notice of him.

If 2005 was the year for him to announce himself, 2006 was the year to show the real promise he had by stopping giant Englishman David Price. Despite Price having a considerable size advantage over Glazkov the Ukrainian merely proved that size doesn't count for everything. In the biggest tournament of the year, the European Amateur Champions, Glazkov ran into top Bulgarian Kubrat Pulev who widely out pointed Glazkov, again showing that Glazkov wasn't the finished article.

It wasn't until 2007 that Glazkov managed to medal at a major competition, thanks to a Silver medal at the 2007 World Amateur Championships. Sadly for Glazkov he ran into the exceptional Roberto Cammarelle of Italy in the final and lost a wide decision on point. Despite the loss in the final Glazkov had made his mark and proven he could compete with the best in the world. The following year, at the Beijing Olympics Glazkov started well but suffered an injury on his elbow that saw him pull out of a fight with Chinese fighter Zhang Zhilei (the eventual Silver medal winner).

After the Olympic heartbreak Glazkov turned professional and made his debut in late 2009. Glazkov's debut was against Turkish heavyweight Oezcan Cetinkaya who, at the time, had a record of 15-5-1. Glazkov would box a clear decision win over his experienced opponent and set the tone for his career so far, which has seen him face very credible opponents fight after fight, rather than pad his record as fellow Olympian Deontay Wilder has done.

Since his debut Glazkov has faced several real tests such as Alexey Varakin (who was 28-16-3), Ramon Hayes (15-29-1), Mark Brown (15-3) and most recently the dangerous Denis Bakhtov (33-5) as the Ukrainian prospect has forged to a 9-0 (6) record. Impressively Glazkov hasn't just been fighting a stiff level of opposition but beating them with relative ease and racking up valuable experience with 31 rounds and an 8 round bout already under his belt.

Glazkov is next expected to fight in October on a show in the Dominican Republic against an as yet unknown opponent. Going by his record so far we can only expect to see Glazkov in a bout that will act as a real test and hopefully help make him into a more promising young fighter. To date however he's shown excellent skills, fantastic hand speed and the ability to box whilst keeping up a solid work rate. Although he has question marks over his power it's likely he'll grow his real punching power of the coming years, and what is obvious from watching him is he can land clean accurate shots time and time again. If the 6'3" fighter can keep his weight in the 220's he could well be a contender that the world can be proud of, for now however he's "just" one of the elite heavyweight boxing prospects.

Thanks to LoopingRightHand for the video below.