Despite the recent successes of IBF cruiserweight champion and World Boxing Super Series winner Mairis Briedis and MTK Golden Contract winner Ricards Bolotniks, Latvian boxing hasn’t just sprouted out of thin air. Combat sport – alongside ice hockey, football, and basketball – has always been important in cities like its capital, Riga.
It’s a nation that is often used in cliched anecdotes when discussing foreign journeymen, thrown in with pretty records cobbled together in gloomy European gyms. But what both men have brought to boxing’s top table is the ability of Latvian fighters to emerge victorious at the highest level; their success has added an element of genuine credibility.
Boxing Social caught up with likeable light-heavyweight Bolotniks (18-5-1, 8 KOs), who is ready to steam into 2021 after a breakthrough year in his natural weight class. Battling a winter flu of his own (and nothing more sinister), he talked about the strangest year in modern memory and the opportunity to win a belt in his hometown.
“I think the year 2020 was bad for everyone. Now, this year, I think it will probably be the same. I’m not happy about it [overall], but I won two, big fights at the end of last year. Of course, I’m very happy that the tournament ended and I was the winner, but I would be a lot happier if the world was normal. Not like it is now.
“We had prepared to fight in March [2020] in the UK, but everything was closed and cancelled. Then, after a few months, we got the information from England that they could do the semi-final [versus Hosea Burton] in Riga. I was shocked and I was happy; it was very good news; it was good for my people, my supporters and my family. My wife was with me all the time, so I was more relaxed. It wasn’t like I was fighting in some different country.”
Manchester’s Hosea Burton was the first of two victims, with Bolotniks battering a well-respected Serge Michel in the final in December (WTKO10). It’s been a long road, though, for the 30-year-old from Riga. His record shows five defeats and one draw from 24 fights, but his stint at cruiserweight meant risky fights with the likes of Thabiso Mchunu and Micki Neilson.
Photo: MTK Global.
Enjoying the best run of his career, Ricards explained that boxing wasn’t always his focus: “I had a very bad childhood. It was crazy, I was a bad child. From a young age, my father put me into ice hockey – I played for 11 years. I was training for lots of things though; I was swimming, I was doing karate and Thai boxing for a few years. When I was a child, I was like all kids, just running around, screaming and doing some bad things. Just like all bad kids.
“I can’t say I was a nice lad who sat on a chair doing his homework; no, I was a very bad kid. I was having trouble, but boxing taught me to be a good man. Boxing is a gentleman’s sport, so when I started training, I started thinking about other people, not only myself. If I was having some problems or fights on the street, I’d hit you straight away. But now, I start to think about his life, about my life, about leaving the situation and getting away from that. Boxing changed something in my mind.
“My father was a good swimmer. He had a lot of trophies and first places; he was a champion. He’s a good boxer – but he didn’t ever train professional. There were lots of fights, street fights, but he was a good boxer. He’d teach me from when I was a young age about how to hit. My mother, too [was a combat sports practitioner]; she was a jiu-jitsu instructor. So, my family was really strong. When I was born, my mother said I was 5kg, so I was really big. Everybody said, ‘If he’s 100% healthy and he’s okay, he will be a sportsman; he won’t be sitting in an office’. I was big baby Bolotniks.
‘Big Baby Bolotniks’ has a ring to it, no doubt. The change from troubled young man to studious, aspiring boxer surprised the Lavtian, but he felt at home in the gym. When talking to Boxing Social about his first visit to the boxing facility, he explained that he used to fear leaving the nightclubs of Riga more – wondering what type of violence on the street would be waiting for him at closing time.”
Photo: MTK Global.
Wrapping hands and skipping rope was no comparison.
Now, with three meaningful wins at 175lbs and the ink drying on his Golden Contract, the Riga-native wants to fight. Bolotniks is ranked highly with the IBF (No.7) and the WBO (No.9), so big fights should follow. But for now, he wants to get back into the ring and is keen to fight some of the UK’s biggest names. There were rumours of Callum Johnson – with a fight being lined up in England, yet nothing is concrete yet.
“I can tell you; we are having a conversation just now about a fight in April,” he admitted. “It’s not 100%. There’s no contract, but we are training. The world now, you can’t be sure about what happens tomorrow or next week. We have started to prepare now for April, but Covid and everything else may be against us. I want to fight in the middle of April or at the end of April, hopefully it will be in the UK. Soon, we should have the news.”
Between now and then, he’ll continue soaking up his increased profile and slight national celebrity, which he said left him red-faced and awkward. Bolotniks isn’t a brash, flashy personality; he is very much representative of his country. Understated, underrated and still punching above his weight in a division full of potential, exciting bouts.
“When so many people look at me, and give me attention, I don’t really like it,” he said. “I like it [professionally], but I’m just a guy from a small town. It’s a small town with small streets; I’m just the guy from the small house and he has his own friends on the streets. I can’t think about it; everybody texted me and called me [when I beat Michel to win the Golden Contract] – so many people. I read them and I listen to them, and I say, ‘Oh, thank you very much’. I feel like a small kid again. It’s very good. These last four months were brilliant for me. I am a different guy; I am from Latvia and when these British fans write to me from the UK, it’s cool. I feel like we still have good people in the world!”
Main image and all photos: MTK Global.