Ismailov, Ali Shamil oglu

Ali Ismailov was born on May 8, 1974 in the city of Donetsk, Ukrainian SSR , and subsequently permanently resided in Azerbaijan . He began to actively engage in boxing from early childhood on the instructions of his parents, was trained in the boxing section of the Dynamo Baku under the guidance of the honored coach Rauf Jabbarov ^[1] .

Amateur career

First announced itself back in 1994, winning a bronze medal at the World Cup in Bangkok. From that moment, he was in the main team of the Azerbaijani national team and regularly participated in major international tournaments. So, in 1999, he visited the World Championships in Houston , from where he brought the bronze dignity award won in the light heavyweight category - he was stopped by the American Michael Simms at the semifinal stage.

In 2000, Ismailov became the bronze medalist of the European Championship in Tampere and, thanks to a series of successful performances, was awarded the right to defend the honor of the country at the Sydney Summer Olympics , where in the 1/16 finals with the score 18:23 he lost to the representative of Uzbekistan Sergey Mikhailov .

After the Sydney Olympics, he remained in the boxing team of Azerbaijan for another Olympic cycle and continued to box at the largest international competitions, and in 2002 at the World Championship between the armed forces took first place in the light heavyweight category. As a result, in 2004 he went to the Athens Olympics and again managed to reach the 1/16 finals in the light heavyweight: in the opening match he defeated the Brazilian Washington Silva , but in the second fight with the score 31:16 he was defeated by the Greek Elias Pavlidis ^[2] .

Professional career

After leaving the Azerbaijani national team, in 2004 Ali Ismailov decided to try himself among professionals and, having signed a contract with promoter Alexander Yagupov, successfully made his debut on a professional level. At this time, he constantly lived in St. Petersburg and performed mainly in Russia. In February 2006, he met the undefeated Russian Vadim Tokarev and lost to him, refusing to enter the ring after the eighth round.

Despite the defeat, Ismayilov continued to perform at boxing shows and for the next two years made a series of twelve victories in a row, including winning and defending twice the title of the Latin champion according to the World Boxing Organization (WBO). Having risen to eleventh place, he was awarded the right to challenge the WBO world title in the first heavy weight category, which at that time belonged to Argentinean Victor Emilio Ramirez . The match between them, held in May 2009 in Argentina, lasted all the allotted 12 rounds, and the judges split decision gave the victory to Ramirez (112: 116, 115: 113, 113: 115) ^[3] .

In the same year, he held another title fight, this time his opponent was the Russian boxer Denis Lebedev , and the WBO intercontinental champion was at stake - as a result, Ismailov received a serious cut, and after the sixth round the doctor forbade him to continue the battle ^[4] .

In 2010, he won two more victories in Russia, after which he traveled to Europe as a jornimen , meeting with promising, growing avenues. So, in Germany, his rival was the future world champion from Cuba, Joan Pablo Hernandez , whom he lost by knockout in the first round. In March 2011, in Poland, he fought for the title of Intercontinental Champion according to the International Boxing Organization (IBO) with the undefeated Pole Mateusz Masternak and was defeated by technical knockout. Later he boxed with representatives of Ukraine Dmitry Kucher and Ismail Sillah , but also could not oppose them.

Having suffered five defeats in a row, he decided to end his career as a professional athlete. In total, he spent 27 fights in professional boxing, of which 18 won (including 13 ahead of schedule), 8 lost, in one case a draw was recorded ^[5] .

• Ali Ismailov - professional boxing statistics for BoxRec
• Ali Ismailov - Olympic statistics at Sports-Reference.com