By Alexey Sukachev

Fresh off his breakthrough win, a scary first-round knockout of badly faded Ukrainian Ismayl Sillakh last November, red hot Russian cruiserweight Alexey Papin (9-0, 8 KOs) will stay busy with a tune-up bout, which is set to take place on March 17.

Papin faces mostly unknown Kazakh expatriate Vladimir Kelesh (4-0, 2 KOs) over ten rounds in what seems to be a mismatch.

The fight takes places at a newly opened Floyd Mayweather Boxing Academy, which is situated in luxury suburbs of Zhukovka, nearside Moscow, Russia. World of Boxing promotes the event.

Also on the card is WBO #12 light welterweight and Russian national champion Georgiy Chelokhsaev (13-1-1, 11 KOs) and featherweight Evgueny Smirnov (11-0-1, 2 KOs).

Rapidly rising Russian female boxer Inna “The Ice Queen” Sagaydakovskaya (7-0, 3 KOs), coming off her second-round stoppage of the German Jennifer Retzke (16-4-1) for the WBC light middleweight crown, is full of positive aspirations regarding her career progress.

According to Inna S.’ manager Andrey Tokarev, there’s a three-step road to an almost unthinkable achievement.

“We are looking for the next steps for Inna – whom and when she is going to fight next. Firstly, we want a unification bout with the WBA/WBO champion Hanna Gabriel (18-1-1, 11 KOs) of Costa-Rica. We hope to have it done by April or mid-May either in the States or on the Hanna’s home turf in Costa-Rica. Then we hope for the IBF champion Chris Namus (24-4, 8 KOs). The Ice Queen might be the first ever undisputed world champion from Russia," said Tokarev.

“Look, here’s the point. We want to make a complete sweep, capturing all the meaningful belts at 154 lbs by the end of the summer. But it’s just the first milestone. If successful, we want to get onto the P4P #1 and welterweight queen Cecilia Braekhus (32-0, 9 KOs) to become the first ever two-division undisputed champion. No one has done that – not even Braekhus, or Laila Ali, or Natasha Ragozina."