Alexander Dimitrenko

Alexander Viktorovych "Sascha" Dimitrenko (Олександр Вікторович Димитренко; born 5 July 1982) is a Ukrainian-born German former professional boxer who competed from 2001 to 2019, and held the European heavyweight title from 2010 to 2011.

Dimitrenko began boxing at the age of fourteen.

Representing Russia, he won the 2000 World Junior Championships in the super-heavyweight division at the age of eighteen, with German promoter Klaus-Peter Kohl offering him a deal immediately afterwards.

Dimitrenko signed with Kohl's Universum promotion company and moved to Hamburg to begin his professional career.

Dimitrenko made his professional debut on 8 December 2001, stopping Marcus Johnson in four rounds on the undercard of the fight between Vitali Klitschko and Ross Puritty.

Dimitrenko's professional debut averaged over 5 million viewers on Sat.1.

Standing at an imposing 2.01 m, he was widely regarded as one of the top contenders for a future world title opportunity.

He compiled a record of 14 wins in 14 bouts, ending 10 of them inside the distance, 8 of them - inside the first two rounds.

He was then scheduled to face his first notable opponent, Ross Puritty.

The bout generated attention in both Germany and Ukraine, given Puritty's win over Wladimir Klitschko six years prior, with Dimitrenko entertaining the idea of beating someone who had defeated one of the Klitschkos.

The bout was scheduled to happen on 31 July 2004, but Purrity pulled out after suffering an elbow injury during training camp while sparring with Juan Carlos Gomez.

Puritty pulled out just three days before the scheduled date.

Instead, Dimitrenko faced former British and Commonwealth heavyweight champion Julius Francis, who at the time was used as a stepping stone by some of the rising prospects, such as Audley Harrison and Volodymyr Vyrchys, and as a stay-busy fight by heavyweight contenders.

Dimitrenko won the bout by a lopsided unanimous decision (UD), with all three judges scoring the bout identically 80–72, giving Dimitrenko every round.

The fight between Dimitrenko and Puritty was re-scheduled to take place on 6 November 2004, with Dimitrenko agreeing for a tune-up bout against Andy Sample.

Dimitrenko defeated Sample by second-round TKO.

On 6 November 2004, he finally faced Puritty in an anticipated showdown that was televised by ZDF.

The fight was part of the three-fight main event which also saw Sergiy Dzindziruk defending his European welterweight title against Hussein Bayram, and Mario Veit defending WBO world super-middleweight title against Charles Brewer.

Dimitrenko outboxed Puritty for the majority of the fight, staying on the outside and keeping his opponent at the end of his jab.

Ultimately, Dimitrenko won the fight by unanimous decision (UD), with scores 80–72 (twice) and 79–73.

In his next outing, on 5 March 2005, he faced hard-hitting American prospect, Chris Koval, on the undercard of Felix Sturm vs. Bert Schenk.

This was Dimitrenko's first fight scheduled for 10 rounds.

Coming into the fight, 22-year old Koval had 20–1 record with 16 KOs, with 11 of them in the first round.

Dimitrenko was knocked down in the second round but dominated his opponent throughout the rest of the fight.

The bout went full ten rounds, with Dimitrenko being declared the winner by a lopsided unanimous decision with scores 98–91 (twice) and 98–92.

This was bettered on 2 July 2005, when Dimitrenko picked up two vacant regional championships — IBF and WBO Inter-Continental heavyweight titles — after a second-round knockout of Andreas Sidon.

Dimitrenko then agreed to face Vaughn Bean on September 28, 2005 as part of the card dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of former world heavyweight champion Max Schmeling, with the main event of the night being the WBO world heavyweight title fight between Luan Krasniqi and Lamon Brewster.

The fight card had seven boxers from the former Soviet Bloc scheduled to fight - Dimitrenko, Ruslan Chagaev, Denis Boytsov, Taras Bidenko, Valeriy Chechenev, Bagrat Ohanyan and Alexei Mazikin, with the latter being forced to pull out due to injury.

31-year old Bean, known for having competitive bouts with world champions Evander Holyfield and Michael Moorer and having only been stopped by Vitali Klitschko, was considered Dimitrenko's toughest challenge to date.

In the opening rounds, Dimitrenko was mostly throwing straight punches, struggling with Bean's movement and counterpunching style as well as attacks to the body.

Bean was deducted a point in round three for intentional low blows.

In the eighth round, Dimitrenko staggered Bean with a left hook and continued to apply pressure on his opponent, going back-and-forth between attacks to the head and body.

Dimitrenko was ultimately declared the winner by unanimous decision, with the judges scoring the bout 95–93, 96–92 and 95–93.

After defeating Chad Van Sickle by second-round TKO, Dimitrenko agreed to face Argentine boxer Gonzalo Omar Basile on 28 October 2006.

In the build up to the fight, Basile received media attention for his tattoos.

During pre-fight press conference, Basile claimed to be "the devil between heavyweights", while Dimitrenko expressed his disgust with "so many tasteless tattoos" on Basile's body, and that he was going to punish Basile for them.

In the lead-up to the fight, Dimitrenko's coach Fritz Sdunek said that his fighter was getting better with each bout, and that very soon he would become "the new Klitschko" and fight for the world heavyweight title.

The fight took place at Porsche-Arena in Stuttgart and was televised on ZDF.

It was Basile's first professional bout outside of South America.

The fight lasted 54 seconds, with Basile's corner throwing in the towel after Basile could not respond to a barrage of shots from Dimitrenko.