Arsen Goulamirian positive for COVID, pulled from Aleksei Egorov title defense

Begrudging apologies to Gary Russell Jr., whom I incorrectly deemed the least-active champion in the sport. WBA “super” cruiserweight champion Arsen Goulamirian has withdrawn from today’s title defense against unbeaten Aleksei Egorov, which would have been his first fight since December 2019, after testing positive for COVID.

France’s Goulamirian (26-0, 18 KO) stopped Ryad Merhy for the interim title in 2018, was redesignated “gold” champ for his win over Mark Flanagan seven months later, then got bumped up to “world” and “super” status in quick succession when Beibut Shumenov was stripped and Denis Lebedev retired.

He defended that new title twice in two months with wins over Kane Watts and Constantin Bejenaru.

Egorov (11-0, 7 KO), meanwhile, claimed the freshly vacated gold title by stopping Roman Golovaschenko, then beat Serhiy Radchenko and Vasil Ducar in non-title 10-rounders. He hasn’t competed since March 2020.

Fingers crossed that Goulamirian recovers quickly; both men are in desperate need of ring time.