Egis Klimas – Hard Working Self-Made Manager & New Gym Owner!

Egis Klimas – Hard Working Self-Made Manager & New Gym Owner!
By: Ken Hissner

Egis Klimas is from Lithuania and after the German invasion of his country he ended up in the Russian Army for two years working on tanks. The International Rescue Committee is a refugee placement group who helped people like Klimas get out of war torn countries where persecution runs high.

Klimas came to the state of Washington in 1989 and took on many jobs and through his hard work and determination has become one of the most successful managers in boxing. His good friend Don Turner (trainer of Holyfield and Holmes) has played a big part in the life of Klimas having a camp in North Carolina for boxers.

“Best guy (Klimas) I ever met in boxing. He is the best manager in boxing today,” said Don Turner. “I met him when he first came over here and he is a class act and is going to be a power house in boxing,” said Don Elbaum.

Turner being a well- respected trainer and advisor through Klimas took in Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev, at the start of his career who is now 30-1-1 (26), having lost his WBA, WBO and IBF in a highly disputed decision to Andre Ward. This writer had Kovalev ahead by five points.

How the referee allowed Ward to initiate 46 clinches in a 36 minute bout is questionable. Turner and Klimas believed in Kovalev. This writer believes Klimas has two of the three best P4P boxers in the world today in Kovalev and two-time Olympic Gold Medalist and WBO featherweight champion Vasyl “Hi-Tech” Lomachenko, 7-1 (5).

Lomachenko, 7-1 (5), fought for the vacant WBO world featherweight title in his second fight losing a split decision to Orlando Salido who was overweight forfeiting his title. He showed little interest in giving Lomachenko a rematch.

When he did he asked Top Rank for an outrageous amount of money which tells you he didn’t want that rematch after all.

Lomachenko knocked out Rocky Martinez for the WBO super featherweight title so now if Salido wants that title he will have to come to Lomachenko. Lomachenko was an incredible 396-1 in the amateurs only losing to Russian Albert Selimov whom he defeated twice afterwards. Lomchenko is scheduled to fight WBA champion Jason Sosa in a unification bout April 8th.
Klimas works with fifteen boxers and co-manages a pair of Russians in Dmitry Mikhaylenko, 22-1, a welterweight and Vasily Lepiken, 19-1-1, a light heavyweight. Klimas speaks Russian, Lithuanian, English and some Spanish. He manages five boxers from the Ukraine, four from Russia, three from KAZ, two from LITH, and one from GEO. They go from heavyweight to featherweight. Besides Lomchenko he manages the WBO cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk, 11-0 (10) of UKR.

Klimas informed this writer that heavyweight Vyacheslav “The Czar” Glazkov, 21-1- (13), of the UKR, is back in the gym having been inactive since losing to Charles Martin in January of 2016 with an ankle injury. His other heavyweight is Oleksandr Teslenko, 8-0 (7), of the UKR, who just moved from Toronto, CAN, to Oxnard, CA, to train in the World Boxing Gym that Klimas recently opened. Teslenko is to fight February 24th in his US debut headlining at the Studio City, CA, event.

Besides Kovalev, Klimas has another good light heavyweight in Oleksandr “The Nail” Gvozdyk, 12-0 (10), of the UKR, ranked No. 3 by the WBC, No. 6 by the WBO and No. 10 by the IBF. He currently holds the NABF title. He was 8-0 in the World Series of Boxing. He won a Bronze Medal in the 2012 Olympics.

The three boxers from KAZ that Klimas has are middleweight Meiirim Nursultanov, 1-0 (0), super welterweight Madiyar Ashkeyev, 7-0 (3), and super lightweight Ashkat Ualikhanov, 1-1 (1), all living in Oxnard, CA. The one fighter from GEO is super welterweight Enriko “Gudan” Gogokhia, 3-0 (1). The two boxers from LITH, are super welterweight Virgilijus Stapulionis, 27-4-1 (19), and welterweight Egidijus Kavaliauskas, 15-0 (12), the No. 11 contender in the WBO, who Klimas is very high on.

Klimas has four Russian fighters in Kovalev, super welterweight Alexander Besputin, 6-0 (5), who in the World Series Boxing was 3-0. Then there is super lightweight Maxim “Mad Max” Dadashev, 6-0 (5), and the former IBF featherweight champion Evgeny “El Ruso Mexicano” Gradovich, 22-2-1 (9), who was born in Siberia. As an amateur he was 126-24. He is scheduled to fight in Russia along with Mikhaylenko May 5th.

Both will be scheduled for twelve rounds.

In asking Klimas about the possibility of a Kovalev-Ward rematch he had this to say: Ward doesn’t want that fight.

Kovalev said he would fight Ward anywhere including Oakland, CA, where Ward is from. Ward has a nine month max to give Kovalev a rematch.

Klimas is a real go getter who has shown that hard work pays off!