Arsen Goulamirian
Tuesday, May 19, 2020Arsen Goulamirian (born 4 October 1987) is an Armenian-born French professional boxer. He has held the WBA (Super) cruiserweight title since 2019. As of January 2020, he is ranked as the world's eighth-best active cruiserweight by The Ring magazine and ninth by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board.
Arsen turned professional in 2011 and won 14 consecutive fights before winning the WBA Continental (Europe) cruiserweight title.He would improve his record to 22–0 before getting a shot at the vacant Regular WBA cruiserweight title against Ryad Merhy. Arsen would end up winning the fight via 11th round stoppage and became the interim WBA cruiserweight champion.
The WBA changed Goulamirian's status from Regular to Interim, when former champion Beibut Shumenov came back from his eye injury and recovered the Regular WBA cruiserweight title by defeating Turkish Hizni Altunkaya on 7 July 2018.
On 20 October 2018, Goulamirian defended his Interim title for the first time against the Australian Mark Flanagan in Marseille, France. Flanagan’s corner threw in the towel in the ninth round after he fell twice. Goulamirian end up retaining his title with a ninth round TKO.
In February 2019, Goulamirian's promoter Sébastien Acariès lost a purse bid against Don King, Shumenov's promoter. King won after submitting a winning bid of $821,000, for the proposed WBA “Regular” cruiserweight title fight between titleholder Beibut Shumenov and interim champion Arsen Goulamiriam in Kazakhstan sometime in May. When asked about the fight King said “I’m excited about the prospect of Shumenov returning home to defend his title and meet both the outgoing and the new President of his country. I’m planning to put together another great Don King Productions extravaganza. It will be a night of boxing that Kazakhstan and the United States will not forget.”
However King failed to honor his winning bid and to put together the fighting event, as Shumenov was stripped of his title. Arsen Goulamirian became the new Regular WBA cruiserweight champion.
On June 2019, The World Boxing Association (WBA) Championships Committee called for the Purse bid to grant the promotional rights of the Cruiserweight division, between the Super Champion, Denis Lebedev and the Regular Champion, Arsen Goulamirian. But the auction was suspended because both sides reached an agreement to finalize the fight. In July 2019, the Lebedev vs Goulamirian fight collapsed, as Denis Lebedev decided to retire on aged 39.
Goulamirian presented his Regular WBA cruiserweight belt in Marseille, on 20 July 2019 without fighting against Lebedev.