Ural MMA Star Ivan Shtyrkov (22 wins, 2 losses, 1 draw) fought in MMA on December 3, 2022 against Asyljan Bakytzhanuly . On March 7, according to the rules of boxing against Magomed Ismailov. And now he will fight on May 13 under kickboxing rules against Piotr Romankiewicz.
Initially, Shtyrkov’s rival was to be Viktor Nemkov (the older brother of Bellator champion Vadim Nemkov), but he was injured and a very cruel replacement was selected for Shtyrkov. The basic sambo wrestler Ivan must fight according to the rules of kickboxing against the world champion of this sport, who will be 13 cm taller. Petr Romankevich won several international tournaments by kick, fulfilled the MSMK standard and now, together with journalists, he finds out how dangerous Shtyrkov can be for him.
– How can a person who has never competed there win against a kickboxing world champion? – a question to Romankevitch
– Vanya is a professional, we have a heavy weight and anything can happen. Vanya can fall, I can fall. We go out to show a show, a show. We are ready for it.
– Do you expect him to make typical mistakes that an athlete can make, just because he doesn’t understand the specifics of the sport?
I don’t wait, I hope. He enters my battlefield.
– You have been offered a boxing match. Why was it abandoned?
First of all, I’m not a boxer. Secondly, when I was offered this fight, I weighed around 110 kg, I had to drive a lot of weight. Taking a fight on short notice that wasn’t in my sport wasn’t very good. When they said that we could fight according to the rules of kickboxing, that interested me.
– How do you think that Ivan Shtyrkov himself perceives this fight? Is he a professional athlete and does he understand that he is up against the elite athlete in his sport?
– I think he’s going to push and hit with emphasis, because we don’t have a fight, there’s no grapples, there’s no throws. I think he will try to breathe me.
– And you didn’t talk about kickboxing, but about MMA gloves?
– No, we didn’t discuss it. I think that if we had chosen such a format, we would have quickly adapted, but in such a battle, someone would have quickly fallen. Vanya has such beaters… you can always defend yourself with boxing gloves, you can defend, play. And here is a completely different one-time job, where you need to make a pendulum and not stand still.
– We saw that you and Ivan met two hours ago in the weighing room. Did you talk about something?
– No. Vanya and I wrote before the fight, I said that I was happy to fight with him. He also said he was happy to fight the best, but yesterday I was thinking a bit about how our meeting was going to go. I thought: well, let’s joke, we’re going to have fun, because we don’t have some kind of difficult build-up of the battle, we don’t call each other swear words. But the meeting went off without a hitch. I think maybe we’ll meet again, talk and shake hands.
So you didn’t even shake my hand?
– Shrug, say hello, but rather curtly. We were doing our own thing there.
– Famous kickboxer Artem Vakhitov is to fight for the first time in MMA, but would you be interested in fighting against him according to certain rules?
– I read his interview, he is on his way to the UFC, we have a very warm relationship with Tema, we were together in training camp, I think we have someone to fight with. I treat him very well, but if an offer comes, I won’t refuse.
– That is to say the question of an increased tax?
– We have different ways with Artem. In Russia, I play kickboxing and boxing, and he decided to go into MMA. At the same time, he has a very good boxing, he punches like a cannon with his hands. We stood in pairs and it was one of the toughest fights of my life.
I think now a few opponents will give him standing men, and he will have time to tighten the fight. He’s young. He is two years younger than me, so everything is just beginning for him in MMA, he just has other doors open.
– Would you be interested in fighting against Vladimir Mineev?
– I wonder if Vova is a serious name. Kamil Hajiyev once said about this fight that if I beat Fernando Rodriguez in August, then at the end of the year our fight [с Минеевым] can take place.
– We can see that Mineev is much smaller than you, how much weight could you lose for this fight?
“We have to talk about the conditions here. Today I showed one hundred kilograms on the scale, and a week ago I weighed 110 kg. In principle, this cut was easy for me. Yes, I went on a diet, drank water, cut carbs, but gained weight even without professional nutritionists. If I approached this problem competently, for someone to drive me, I would assume that I would be 95 kg. On the other hand, you have to see in what shape I will be, displaying 100 kg on the scale. When I weigh 107, I feel great, I don’t feel like a heavy hitter that’s immobile and easy to hit.
“And 93 kg?”
– I do not imagine such a figure yet, because it may be real in theory, but the question is how I will feel at such a weight. So far, I do not represent myself in this category.
– You had a strange fight with Zalimkhan Yusupov (acts in the category up to 70 and up to 77 kg), who won you by strangulation, just because he knew about the fight. How does a heavyweight feel when he loses to a lightweight due to ignorance of a particular technique or a particular sport?
– I have already answered this question and said that a stick can shoot once in a lifetime. So she fired. I didn’t need this fight, I had already flown to Thailand and arrived at the tournament without training at all. And it turns out that I was offered a good sum. I thought about it, but I decided why I should fight him from a standing position, especially since he doesn’t have a strike, I’ll give him a few knees and that’s it. Well, that played further than my minus is the stalls. He tightened it up and landed me on the first move.
– In recent years, a variation of the low kick has been discussed in MMA, when the kick is not delivered above the knee, on the thigh muscle, but below the knee, and from this way the fighters destroy the joint or try to bruise the tibial nerve. Has this kick really become fashionable or has it always been popular?
“It’s a sneaky punch and I’ve seen it hit in MMA, but it hasn’t been used in kickboxing. It’s a dangerous punch. When you punch in the thigh, you feel like kicking out meat, muscle, but when you hit below the knee, you can end the fight there very sadly He didn’t usually do kickboxing, but when new techniques come out and they work well, it comes to people, whereas when I was doing kickboxing, these blows were mainly carried by beginners who did not know this sport.
Can you win a street fight with a low kick?
– After I started training professionally, I didn’t fight on the streets anymore, but I think a low blow will be enough for an unprepared person. The person does not know what it is, he has a relaxed leg, he does not know that the thigh must be slightly stretched and moved towards the impact, and the person can withdraw the hip from the impact, and because from this, your leg accelerates more and cuts harder into the muscle. On the contrary, it is necessary to meet and extinguish this blow. And in general, yes, the low-kick can be knocked out.
– Will you earn the biggest salary of your career for the fight with Ivan Shtyrkov?
– Yes
Is it more than two million rubles?
– More. Yes.
– Do you automatically translate this into Belarusian rubles or dollars?
— We respect Belarusian rubles, but as even in Russia they cannot be changed everywhere, yes, you often count in dollars.
Watch live broadcasts of MMA tournaments on the channel, as well as on the matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru websites.
Source : MatchTV
I am Ashley Ortiz and I am a professional journalist working for Athletistic. My specialty is in sports journalism, particularly boxing. I have written articles for some of the most renowned publications on the subject, and my work has been featured across both print and digital media platforms.
