The classic GeeBee boxing tournament in Helsinki has been given its name From Gunnar Bärlund (1911–1982), who was a star of the 1930s both as an amateur and as a professional.
On Friday of this week, the professionals will also compete at the Sports Hall, for example GeeBee has profiled itself specifically as a high-quality spring event for amateur boxers.
Professionals were wanted because the Finnish Boxing Federation is what it is today internationally member in the new World Boxing umbrella organization. The IBA or International Boxing Association, left by Finland and considered corrupt, is still a clearly larger organization, which is why recruiting high-quality amateur teams to Helsinki is significantly more difficult than before.
Finnish professional boxing has lived a quiet life for the sake of high visibility and success after first Amin Asikainen and after that the continuation of his career continues to be a lottery for several reasons of Robert Helenius the days of greatness ended. However, Asikainen, 48, is strongly in the background when professional boxing, which did well in the 2000s and 2010s, is looking for new income.
Breakeven account
The most interesting and potential Finnish name in the sport is currently considered to be the Finno-Russian who moves from upper middleweight (76.2 kg) to heavy middleweight (79.4 kg) Anton Embulaev. On Friday, he will face a Dutchman who has been successful in kickboxing at the Sports Hall Darryl Sichtman’s. The match weight has been agreed to be 78 kilograms. The match is the eighth in Embulaev’s 1 and a half year long, undefeated career.
Asikainen, who became Embulaev’s coach the other year, admits that among clean points wins there should already be a victory, which is described by the abbreviation TKO, i.e. stoppage of the ring judge, or KO, i.e. complete knockout. In the third match of his career in March 2023, he was already close when he received hard body blows Cvintilian Lisii left the match at halftime.
– Boxing is a sport where statistics are looked at with the eye to see if the guy has the kind of intimidation and striking power to knock a man down. Anton came to me from another gym, and the work is in progress, says Asikainen while training his competition team at Kirkkonummi Boxing Club’s famous gym near the city center.
At this point, Embulaev’s own story, 22, is even more interesting than his career, the crown of which the youngster boldly shapes first the European Championship, then the World Championship title. In his extremely competitive weight classes, his goal is the toughest in the entire elite sports scene. The series are currently dominated by such absolutely tough names as Canelo Alvarez, Artur Beterbiev and David Benavidez.
Embulaev was a nine-month-old baby when his mother and father of Ingrian background settled in Lahti from St. Petersburg. Mother has worked in Finland in the nursing field, father as a welder.
In Lahti, Embulaev started boxing at the Kaleva gym Kari Korhonen in coaching, went to high school and then to the army’s Parola Armored Brigade. Even though his amateur career always took him to the men’s World Championships and junior championships, for example the pursuit of an Olympic place in Paris was never an option.
“Professional boxing has always been the thing for me,” says Embulaev, who recently has gotten to know him in particular by Ezzard Charles to the story. The American was the world heavyweight champion from 1949 to 1951, and certainly not among the most remembered legends of his division, for example Joe to Louis, To Muhammad Ali or To Rocky Marciano.
Pig roast in the oven
Embulaev, who likes to study boxing history, has been interested in that Charles was a unique athlete in his time, who had to walk a rocky path. For reasons largely independent of Embulaev, this also fits his career.
But first, let’s get to know the element he hates the most in his profession: weight management. On the night of the interview, there is a week until GeeBee is weighed, and the scale still shows five extra kilos. Embulaev admits a little embarrassed that there is still a freshly cooked roast pig in his oven.
Considered a legend in the heavyweight division George Foreman has become fabulously rich with its signature grill, whose idea is to drain excess fat from the meat during the frying phase into a collection container. Embulaev doesn’t have such a rush in his studio, instead he digs a knife out of the drawer and cuts the fillets off the roast.
– Believe me, there aren’t that many calories when you do this, the quick-witted and humorous young man laughs.
After Kari Korhonen, Embulaev was coached in Kirkkonummi by a two-time World Cup amateur medalist Joni Turunen, but he moved to Tampere and the collaboration ended. At this point, Embulaev, who had settled in Helsinki, got a little lost, and training was on hiatus for a couple of months.
In the winter of 2022, the boxer had received an agreed training opportunity in St. Petersburg, where many of his relatives and friends live. The intention was to train in the metropolis of 5.4 million inhabitants for a good while, but world politics got in the way.
The father picked up the boy at home
– I went to St. Petersburg on Monday, February 22, 2022. The war in Ukraine started on February 24.
Shortly after this, Embulaev arranged for the father to pick up his son home from the Vyborg station.
– When we drove to Finland, I got another call saying that I would have been able to train with a good group in a very good gym. I said that I am returning to Finland. Since then I have been to Russia once, in 2023 to bury my grandmother.
An athlete who belongs to the Finnish military reserve cannot help but ask what it is like to be an athlete of Russian background in Finland in this situation. Embulaev emphasizes his unconditional opposition to the war in Ukraine; he has brought expressed his views before too.
– There has been one situation, it happened in Ullanlinna in Helsinki. I spoke Russian with my friend, and they started barking at us as “v…n ryssy”.
Embulaev would have been able to “trigger” the situation in a very unpleasant way for the shouters, but for him words are sharper than swords.
– I found out that I am a taxpayer who attended schools and colleges here. There have been a few milder cases of this type, but I have not experienced my background as a problem in this sense.
When Embulaev moved to 2022 Asikainen’s coaching, he lived without a car in the inner city of Helsinki, 35 kilometers from the training hall. At this point, the young man started training in a way that convinced Asikainen of his work motivation. Embulaev took the metro west and continued from the terminus on an electric scooter to Kirkkonummi.
Up the stairs to the gym
– In my time, not a single training session has been missed by accident, and I have never had to wake up Antoni because he was sleeping rough. The attitude side is fine, on the contrary, the enthusiasm for training has to be topped up, Asikainen says.
If Asikainen ever had to wake up a boxer who works as a doorman at two restaurants on weekends, the journey would be short: up the stairs from the gym.
The chairman who got Kirkkonummi Boxing Club’s operations back on track Aki Jänkä renovated the space on the upper floor of the hall into an 18 square meter unit equipped with basic amenities; shower and toilet are located right outside the door. Embulaev pays 300 euros a month for housing and can only wake up 15 minutes before morning workouts.
When visiting Urheilu, the soundproofing is of course revealed to be such that the gym’s intense training jumps come unhindered through the floor, which sometimes interrupts the athlete’s night’s sleep early in the morning.
Believes in celibacy
– This is still the best solution, and even if I ever get to the World Cup level, I would keep this place. It is good for a boxer to retreat to an ascetic place, says the bachelor boxer who also believes in celibacy before the match.
– Can keep focus better in boxing. Old school boxers have said that it (breaking celibacy in preparation) takes the legs out. I don’t want a girlfriend who would take up and demand too much of my time and thoughts about boxing. Gotta find the right guy.
For the GeeBee match, Embulaev spars a little lighter in the ring a week before the match Ilari Kujalan with. Excerpts are also followed by the president of the club, Jänkä, who is the front man of the boxer’s promoter company, Elite Boxing.
Friday’s match is Embulaev’s sixth as an Elite Boxing competitor. The next match will be held at the end of summer in Kirkkonummi, outside. Jänkä admits that selling boxing in general is currently difficult. Free ISTV and Ruudu the visibility it offers would be downright impossible. However, you have to start somewhere, and Elite Boxing has collected a lot of praise from its professional nights with small resources.
– The goal is to get Antoni four matches a year and to gradually toughen the resistance. We will switch from six-set matches to eight-set matches, says Jänkä.
Embulaev’s Finnish-Russianness has not been seen by the promoter as any kind of problem.
– Anton is a Finnish boy and here in Kirkkonummi he is a son of his own village.
Embulaev admits that the account should already have knockout wins.
The animal instinct is exhausted
– In terms of my technical skills, I’m a pretty good boxer, but maybe I still lack the beastly instinct to complete the knockout, says Embulaev, who has used his opponents three times on the floor so far.
The client is expecting his first knockout win on Friday. A kickboxer instinctively guards from high, which leaves plenty of room for hard body punches:
– Anton has a good technical eye, and he knows how to dodge. Now you have to get weight on the front leg and from there power to punches, now they start too much with just the hand.