You probably shouldn’t try to get Sergiy Derevyanchenko to talk about the past, including his losses to Daniel Jacobs and Gennadiy Golovkin. He doesn’t see the point of living in the past.
The future? Same thing, even as he approaches his 35th birthday. Derevyanchenko is focused on the now. And he has significant challenge directly in front of him: Jermall Charlo on Sept. 26 in Uncasville, Conn.
“I move forward,” he told Boxing Junkie through a translator, who happened to be his wife, Iryna. “I don’t look back. All my wins make me stronger. All my losses, the same thing. All my fights give me experience, they make me better. So I move forward.”
Derevyanchenko (13-2, 10 KOs) lost a tight split decision to Jacobs in October 2018. And his fight with Golovkin might’ve been closer even though Triple-G won a unanimous decision.
The 34-year-old Ukrainian could’ve had his hand raised both times if he had landed a few more punches here and there. Many thought he did enough to win the brutal fight with Golovkin, which would’ve made him a middleweight titleholder and a bigger player.
Is he bitter? Nope. Again, no dwelling on the past.
Derevyanchenko acknowledged that he experienced what he called a “bad emotion” after each loss but moved on quickly. Does he believe he deserved to win those fights? If so, he wouldn’t say that. Instead, he accepted the judges’ decisions and used them to his benefit.
“I don’t think I did enough to win those fights. That’s why I’m working harder,” he said.
“The Technician” hasn’t fought since the Golovkin fight, which took place last October. In that time, he said, he never allowed himself to get out of shape. He trains religiously for a simple reason, he said: It’s part of the job.
In other words, you can be sure he’ll be at peak fitness when he’s face to face with Charlo in the ring.
Derevyanchenko respects Charlo, who holds a secondary 160-pound title. He was asked whether he believes the Houston fighter is in the same class as Jacobs and Golovkin. He didn’t even wait for his wife to translate, saying “yes.”
“At middleweight there are strong fighters,” he said. “Canelo, Golovkin, Charlo, Andrade. Top fighters. They are all elite fighters. They can all beat each other. It depends on preparation, the situation, the judges, if they meet in the ring.
“Everyone has an opportunity to win. And nobody knows what will happen. That’s why it’s so interesting to be part of this.”
Derevyanchenko has definitely been in the thick of it. He will have fought three elite middleweights in a span of four fights, which is almost unheard of these days. For him, it is just part of the plan.
Six months before the Jacobs fight, he said, he compiled a list of middleweights he wanted to face and pinned it to a wall. The names on the list: Gennadiy Golovkin, Daniel Jacobs, Jermall Charlo, Canelo Alvarez and Billy Joe Saunders.
He’ll be able to check off Charlo after Sept. 26. And he hopes that this time he can put a “W” next to the name on the list.
He was asked whether the third time will be the charm but neither he nor Iryna understood the expression. After it was explained to them, Derevyanchenko chuckled and said, “I like that. Yes, I think it will be the charm.”
Again, Derevyanchenko isn’t comfortable peering beyond the Charlo fight. He’ll be 35 on Halloween but says he feels better now than he did when he was 25, meaning he has barely thought about the concept of retirement.
But he did reveal a wish he has for the future: He doesn’t want to be forgotten.
“I just want my name to go down in history,” he said. “I want young fighters to watch my fights and learn something from my style, from my mistakes, from my wins. Yes, this is something that’s important to me.”
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