According to Dan Rafael of espn.com, Top Rank has signed 2012 Olympic Gold Medal winner Egor Mekhonstev. The Light Heavyweight will turn pro on the December 7th Guillermo Rigondeaux – Joseph Agbeko card in Atlantic City.
“We saw a DVD of [some of his amateur fights] and I loved him,” Top Rank chairman Bob Arum told ESPN.com. “I used to do so many of the great light heavyweight fights [in the late 1970s and 80s] with guys like Matthew Saad Muhammad, Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, Victor Galindez, Yaqui Lopez, Mike Rossman, so I am schooled in light heavyweights and this guy is the kind of fighter who could hold his own with any of those guys. He really reminds me of a guy who could hold his own with them.”
“It is very interesting for me to begin boxing professionally after accomplishing all I did as an amateur. I am very excited,” Mekhontsev said through manager Vadim Kornilov, who also manages newly crowned junior welterweight titleholder Ruslan Provodnikov.
“I am excited as well to begin working with such an amateur standout,” Kornilov said. “I am very confident in Egor’s future as a pro boxer.”
“These [gold medalists] essentially recruited us,” Arum said. “Usually, you run after these guys and wave money at them to get them to sign. We didn’t give one bonus to these guys. They felt we were the best promotions company for them, that we would develop them and put them in the right position and we made deals with them.”
“We stocked up,” said Arum, who turns 82 on Dec. 8. “Besides Mekhontsev, I got more Russians coming. Pretty soon, I can put my own army together. We signed all of these Olympians because we believe they will be top professionals and we believe that this is the future of boxing. It’s a worldwide sport. We didn’t make any differentiation in signing guys because of where they were from.
“We wanted the best fighters and we also know that there are markets all over the world, whether it’s the Russian market, Ukrainian, Chinese, Japanese. We’re now in position to bring the product to these markets because now we have the horses to do it. Whatever more years I have left, it will be on a high note with all of those talented kids.”
