Professional boxing is a very cruel and difficult sport that requires a lot of strength and endurance. As a rule, people come there after many years of career in amateur sports. However, circumstances forced Denis Bakhtov to immediately switch to higher mathematics of this sport. He is a rather famous boxer, who was fighting with the strongest opponents - Sinan Samil Sam, Juan Carlos Gomez. Bakhtov Denis, whose photo can be seen in this article, in different years was one of the top twenty boxers according to the versions of WBC, WBA, IBF. For a decade and a half in professional boxing, he spent 50 fights, in 39 of which he won.
Manner of battle
Bakhtov Denis is a short-haired boxer for heavyweight (181 cm), well-built and well-muscled. He is “two-armed” (he hits well with both hands), he has a hard blow, which many of his opponents have experienced. Like other boxers, he uses his best qualities and during the fight he tries to break the distance between the opponent and arrange exchange with power attacks.
Denis's favorite punches are short “hooks” to the right and left. Taking advantage of his short stature, he loves to use the strongest blows on the body, which can confuse and deprive the forces of the most hardy boxer.
Short amateur career and moving to Russia
Bakhtov Denis Vladimirovich was born in Karaganda, Kazakh SSR in 1979. From the age of seventeen, he attracted the attention of specialists, and he was promised a good career in amateur boxing. However, at that time, Mukhtarkhan Dildabekov was the undisputed first number in the Kazakh team, which did not allow Denis to speak at world championships and olympiads. Because of this, he decided to end with amateur sports and move to St. Petersburg to try his luck in professional boxing. In the Northern capital, he was already waiting for his brother Vladimir, who was a famous Greco-Roman style fighter.
The move was not easy, Denis had to start from scratch in a new place. At first, he didn’t even have money for a rented apartment, and he spent the night right in the gym. Only after the victory of Vladimir's elder brother at the World Cup did they have the opportunity to live in a communal apartment.
Start a professional career
Denis Bakhtov held his debut fight in the professional ring in September 1999. The first year of his career was not very successful. Nothing but victories over obviously weak rivals, he could not boast at that time. In addition, there were defeats against the British Matthew Valis and the Russian Alexei Varakin. But subsequently, he was able to fully take revenge on the offenders by sending both knocked out in return fights.
In 2001, Bakhtov Denis managed to win a rather prestigious WBC Intercontinental Champion belt by knocking out the aforementioned Matthew Valis. He held this honorable title for three years, having managed to carry out four defenses.
Black streak of defeats
One of the best heavyweights in Europe in the mid-2000s was the Turkish Sinan Samil Sam. It was with him that Bakhtov Denis was to carry out the fifth defense of his belt. The fight, which took place in Germany in 2004, took place on a collision course. Opponents eight rounds exchanged the most severe blows from an average distance. Only in the tenth segment of the battle, Denis missed a heavy uppercut and ended up on the floor.
The defeat from Samil Sama seriously threw Denis in the ranking by several positions, but it was not a terrible tragedy. In the end, he lost to a serious adversary, the rising star of the European heavyweight. After a couple of months, he rehabilitated to some extent, defeating the strong Albanian Nuri Seferi. However, the most unpleasant happened six months after the battle with the Turk.
An experienced fighter Saul Montana from Mexico entered the ring against him. A veteran from Latin America had previously performed in the first heavyweight, several times unsuccessfully claimed the championship belt. It seemed that Denis Bakhtov had to deal with a person of lighter weight, whose best years were behind, without any problems. However, already in the first round he missed the hardest blow, after which he was in the ring, and in the fifth round the referee stopped the beating of Denis and awarded the victory to the Mexican. This was a serious test for Bakhtov, many even expected that he would end his career after heavy defeats.
Boxer Highlights
However, the strong guy from Karaganda turned out to be a staunch fighter. He took a timeout of 10 months, rested and regained strength. Having won a series of victories after this, he acquired an exotic title for the Russian boxer as the Asian champion according to the WBO.
After that, Bakhtov Denis met with the strongest opponent in his career. Juan Carlos Gomez from Cuba was already a lightweight champion and longed to be the best heavyweight champion. Everyone expected a quick victory for the Cuban, but Denis worthy of the fight, lasting all twelve rounds. Bakhtov did not give up and after the defeat held a series of five successful battles, taking along the way the belt of Asian champion PABA and WBC.
Denis spent his best fights in his career against German boxer Steffen Kretschmann. By 2009, a tall left-hander (196 cm) had 13 fights, in all of which he won. He was considered a promising newcomer, and the promoters hoped that Bakhtov Denis would become only the next passing opponent of the German. However, the Russian did not want to be the next punching bag for Steffen.
Forty seconds after the start of the battle, he stunned the German with the strongest hook on the right, and at the end of the round he “finished off” the opponent with the same blow. Kretschmann's team considered this defeat to be accidental and demanded revenge. However, in the second match, Denis brought down a hail of blows to the opponent’s body, and he admitted defeat before the end of the match.
After that, Bakhtov Denis held fights in a professional ring until 2015. There were victories, there were defeats, he fought several times for the WBC intercontinental champion title. In any case, he remained in his memory as one of the strongest and most unyielding rivals.