By Yuri Tarantin

WBA cruiserweight world champion Denis Lebedev (29-3, 22KOs) has no plans to change his existing team around, according to his manager Vadim Kornilov.

For his last few camps, Lebedev travels to the United States to work with Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach at the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood, California.

2016 was a mix of highs and lows for Lebedev. He started off the year with a big two round knockout of Victor Ramirez to unify the WBA/IBF cruiserweight belts in May, and then he closed out the year last month with a twelve round split decision loss to undefeated Murat Gassiev. In that defeat Lebedev only lost the IBF world title, as he elected not to stake the WBA world title.

Lebedev wants a rematch with Gassiev, which is possible if he's willing to stake his WBA belt as part of a unification.

"Right now Denis is resting. We will discuss his future options with [Lebdev's promoter] World of Boxing. Maybe, in the middle of next year, we can plan out his next fight," Kornilov said. "Denis will continue to work with Freddie Roach."

"The fight [with Gassiev] was very close. Murat has displayed that he is capable, showed that he is ready to perform at the highest level. And Denis, of course, after a bad knockdown (in the fifth round after a hook to the liver) had to recover, but he managed to do it and started to win rounds. Well done to both of them. After the fight, there has been no health problems at all with Denis. Of course a rematch is interesting. We would like to see if this is something that would be possible to organize. Both fighters have a lot more to show."

Yuri Tarantin covers boxing for Allboxing.ru.