Ryabinsky: I think Lebedev will be assigned to fight for a vacant title

Promoter Andrey Ryabinsky, who works with the Russian boxer Denis Lebedev, commented on the decision of the Ukrainian Oleksander Usyk to vacate the WBA title. WBA appointed promotional bids for Usyk vs Lebedev fight. The auction was supposed to be held on Thursday, but Usyk made a statement that this meeting would not take place, and the Ukrainian himself intends to hold his next fight in the new weight category.

- Did Usyk’s decision to leave the title vacant for you was unexpected or did you expect such a scenario?

- It did not come as a surprise. We assumed that this was exactly what would happen. I saw Usyk’s video on instagram. I think this is an example of decent male behavior. The man leaves the belt and goes to another weight. At the same time, he says that other boxers should have the opportunity to compete for the title. This is a behavior of a great athlete. We would love to meet the option of the battle of Usyk and Denis. That did not happen. Alas.

- Lebedev will now automatically become the WBA champion or there will be a battle for the vacant title?

- It depends on the WBA decision. I believe that a fight for the vacant title will be appointed. We have not yet discussed this situation with Denis. Surely, he will gladly want to fight for the title. We welcome this in every way. But we have no plans for the designated battles or agreements yet. We'll see.

- A lot was said about the possible duel between Usyk and Alexander Povetkin, but how far did the negotiations really go?

- There were a lot of talk and rumors on this topic. I do not like the very idea of this fight, because a huge number of people, including myself, have sympathy for both these guys. There are many worthy rivals, and the battle between them is not what the fans would like to see. But if it was the story of a mandatory duel, we would have organized it. Just like with Denis. It's not very nice when two guys who are loved by our fans beat each other. And this fight would have been possible only if he had been appointed.

- How do you assess the chances of Usyk in the heavy weights? Will he be there as dangerous as in the cruiserweights?

- I think that he has a lot of technical advantages. He is a lively, original, interesting and unusual boxer. He has an arsenal and every chance of showing good heavyweight fights, too. How threatening will he be there? It’s hard to say how he will look like against such big guys as Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder. It's hard to box with them.

- Usyk has three more belts left, and the boxers of this division are Dmitry Kudryashov, Alexey Papin, Andrey Afonin are the clients of your organization. Do you plan to promote them in the ratings of some of them to compete for other titles of Usyk?

- This work is conducted permanently. Our main task is to promote our boxers to the world champion titles and try to pick up as many belts as possible. We want to promote our guys as high as possible in the rankings, regardless of who is the world champion: Usyk or someone else.