BoxRec

No it's not Billy Joe Saunders!

Unbeaten middleweight champion Dmitry Pirog was stripped of his title for choosing to face GGG instead of his mandatory:

In September 2012, Pirog was stripped of his title by the WBO after choosing to fight WBA and IBO middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin instead of WBO interim champion Hassan N'Dam N'Jikam. During training for the Golovkin fight, Pirog suffered a serious back injury—a ruptured disc—which forced cancellation of the fight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Pirog

eeeer, what?

Too bad that fight never happened...I think GGG would've won handily, but Pirog was a crafty boxer with some power.

I gather Pirog has never been in contention to make a comeback? Must have been a bad injury,he was a good fighter,i remember him upsetting Jacobs which was a pretty big shock at the time

Well that wiki entry must have been written by his agent. Factually correct but with a nice slant to make him sound more impressive than it should.

That said, undefeated, no proof of how the career could have panned out. Maybe he would have stopped the GGG train right there.

Must have been a hell of a back injury, I wonder what caused it and what exactly the issue was / is

Pirog was excellent. His fight with Golovkin was a huge risk for both. He blasted out Jacobs, Golovkin's mandatory now and a good fighter,

Shame he retired from boxing.

handsofstone wrote:I gather Pirog has never been in contention to make a comeback? Must have been a bad injury,he was a good fighter,i remember him upsetting Jacobs which was a pretty big shock at the time

Yeah I remember watching it, he beat Jacobs about like a little girl.