Light Kazakh Artem Reznikov spoke for the first time about the reasons for the defeat of Ali Bagova at the ASA tournament, which took place in Moscow on December 24.
For the athlete, this defeat was the second in a row after a series of 10 victories. Previously, Reznikov lost in the ASA Grand Prix final to Eduard Vartanyan.
— How much do you weigh now, how do you train?
— In general, my weight is now 88 kg. I started training now, I immersed myself in Thai boxing so I could kick little by little.
— You wanted to take a long break. Took?
— After the fight, I felt the desire to work harder, to train more. And last month I had to stop working out because I wanted to work out.
— How many times have you gone to the gym in a month?
— In Thailand, I went to the gym twice a week.
— Didn’t it occur to you that in fact you lost to two elite lightweights, Eduard Vartanyan and Ali Bagov, and that maybe it’s not a big tragedy?
— I didn’t reassure myself like that, because if Edik beat me, he was more technical, he had a better game plan, so I myself lost against Ali Bagov. I didn’t lose to him, but to myself. Because I lost a lot of weight there, I couldn’t eat after the fight, I had a gag reflex. The boys, my seconds, don’t let me lie, even on the day of the weigh-in, I couldn’t eat normally, I felt sick, I put myself on a drip to vomit. And the next day I worked with Sanya, I asked him to stand up and he gave me two takedowns. I’ve never had a situation where I was this bad.
And after the first round, I was gone. If Ali had started to drag me from the first round, I would have thought that Ali was stronger than me, but in the first round I felt better both in the stand and in the fight, then I ran out of strength, and that’s it.
– What kind of fight do you want now?
– I want to have two fights, and then I will do a rematch with Ali. I don’t seek revenge when I understand that my opponent was an order of magnitude better when I was weaker. Maybe one day fate will bring Eduard and I together in the same cage, but so far there is no desire, the only desire is to fight with Ali.
— Are you going to compete at lightweight?
“I want to do a fight either at welterweight or intermediate. Because I lost three weights in one year. And the third just killed me. I could barely step on the scale. And I have photos of my tests, for the first time in my life I had very low testosterone levels. Below the norm, and we all understand how necessary this hormone is for athletes. Apparently there were problems due to weight loss.
— What is your post-fight interview with Bagov?
– First of all. I wanted to relax and refused interviews with everyone. So that for a month or a month and a half you can take a break from everything, come into yourself, think, read books. Now I’m asking Aslanbek Badaev for a fight in June or July. Welterweight or intermediate.
— Were you able to somehow help Alexander Sarnavsky in his preparation?
“But I couldn’t help it; after the fight with Bagov, I had a headache for two weeks.” I was sick and dizzy, I couldn’t even go to the movies. I went to the cinema and the loud noise made me sick, ”reports the correspondent of , reporting Reznikov’s words.
Live broadcasts of mixed martial arts tournaments can be seen on and Match! Fighter”, as well as on the sites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.
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.
