Oleksandr Gvozdyk

Bio

Oleksandr “The Nail” Gvozdyk is a Ukrainian light-heavyweight and a former WBC world champion at the weight, and for a couple of years he was genuinely one of the best 175lb fighters alive.

An Olympic bronze medallist for Ukraine, he turned professional and worked his way to the WBC title, which he held until Artur Beterbiev took it from him in a brutal night in Philadelphia in 2019. He retired afterwards, then came back, which is a decision plenty of fighters make and very few of them win.

The comeback produced good nights and bad ones, and it ended the way these things usually do — on the wrong end of a knockout against Radivoje Kalajdzic, a result that has since become the single most valuable line on Kalajdzic’s record.

Whatever comes next, the peak was real. A man who held a version of the world light-heavyweight championship in an era containing Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol has nothing to apologise for.