{"id":740505,"date":"2026-08-17T05:26:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T05:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/740505\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T05:26:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T05:26:23","slug":"zuffa-boxing-cuts-ties-with-former-world-champion-after-just-one-defeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/740505\/","title":{"rendered":"Zuffa Boxing cuts ties with former world champion after just one defeat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former world champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk has been left between a rock and a hard place afterhis promotional contract with Zuffa Boxing has been terminated.<\/p>\n<p>The Ukrainian dethroned long-reigning light-heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson in 2018, scoring an 11th-round stoppage that left his opponent with a brain injury.<\/p>\n<p>Gvozdyk then made a WBC title defence before <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/artur-beterbiev-vs-oleksandr-gvozdyk-philadelphia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">losing to Artur Beterbiev<\/a>, who extended his ruthless surge with a 10th-round finish in their 2019 encounter.<\/p>\n<p>Since that defeat, \u2018The Nail\u2019 suffered a unanimous decision loss to David Benavidez in 2024, before entering a perceived 50\/50 contest against Radivoje \u2018Hot Rod\u2019 Kalajdzic in February.<\/p>\n<p>With both making their Zuffa debut, the two veterans delivered <a href=\"https:\/\/www.boxingscene.com\/articles\/hot-rod-kalajdzic-shakes-off-two-knockdowns-to-finish-oleksandr-gvozdyk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">a thrilling battle in which Gvozdyk scored two knockdowns<\/a> and had built a sizable lead.<\/p>\n<p>In round seven, though, the 39-year-old found himself on the canvas and was ultimately stopped on his feet after getting dropped a second time.<\/p>\n<p>Given his overall performance, one would suspect he had done enough to justify another meaningful opportunity, yet Gvozdyk has since told <a href=\"https:\/\/vringe.com\/news\/202863-zuffa-boxing-razorvala-kontrakt-s-gvozdikom.htm\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">vRINGe<\/a> that he will no longer be fighting under the Zuffa banner.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey terminated the contract in February after a loss. That is, every promoter has the option that if a boxer loses, they have the right to terminate the contract. That\u2019s exactly what they did. After the fight, everyone was saying how great it was. That everything was great. I rested. I started preparing as planned \u2013 somewhere around May. And then, around April, they told me I\u2019d received an email terminating the contract.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Kalajdzic\u2019s next outing with Dana White\u2019s promotional outfit is confirmed for September 26 against Craig Richards.<\/p>\n<p>As for Gvozdyk, it is difficult to predict what will come next but, at the age of 39, one would suspect that he is close to hanging up the gloves.<\/p>\n<p>Still, he could hardly have been happy to part ways with Zuffa, which also terminated its contract with Robert Meriwether following his defeat to Tony Hirsch Jr in April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former world champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk has been left between a rock and a hard place afterhis promotional contract&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":740506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-740505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}