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Saturday, June 12, 2021

Lazarev to Face Col on June 19

Lightweight Igor Lazarev is scheduled to fight Marius Col on June 19 at the International Hotel Casino north of Varna on Bulgaria's eastern coast. This will be the 35 year old's first professional boxing match in the southeastern Balkan country.

Lazarev won his first six fights with an aggressive style and vicious body punches before he ran into Binali Shakhmandarov last September. After suffering a stoppage loss, Lazarev faced an overmatched opponent in his comeback fight last December. Col signifies a logical step up from Igor's December foe.

Col is a 22 year old from Moldova. He won his first two fights by pressuring his rivals. The tactic didn't work in his third fight. Against Evhenii Pylypchuk, Col kept eating shots as he pressed forward and wasn't able to land his favorite punch, a looping right hand.

After falling by decision to Pylypchuk in May of 2019, he moved up ten pounds from featherweight to lightweight. In his next contest, he changed his strategy and looked to counter more, but he dropped a decision to Kristian Bejko in December '19. Coincidentally, Bejko and Lazarev were scheduled to face last summer in Albania, but the show was shutdown at the last minute by authorities due to covid-19 restrictions.

Col was stopped for the first time in his career in his last fight. Leandro Xhelili is a common opponent; he stopped Col in the third round of their February 2020 bout. Lazrev beat a game Xhelili in September of 2019 by split decision.

Igor has also taken part in several contests in something called Xtreme Knock-Out MMA in which the combatants apparently box in an MMA-style octagon. He's 7-1 with 3 KOs in pro boxing while Col is 2-3 without a KO. This bout is slated for six rounds.

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