Say it quietly, but there’s another scary Kazakh fighter on the block – and he’ll be fighting on Golden Gloves’ May 31 event at Emperors Palace.
Tim Baimolda is a 24-year-old junior welterweight who hails from Astana in north central Kazakhstan. He calls himself “The Gentleman”, but there’s nothing gentle about the way he fights.
“I don’t want to shout it from the rooftops, but he’s very special,” says Adam Etches, his trainer.
Etches was a world-rated middleweight several years ago and was slated to box on a Golden Gloves card in Monte Carlo, only to fall out through injury. Those days, of course, were highlighted by Kazakhstan’s greatest export, Gennady Golovkin, who three times headlined Golden Gloves shows in the principality.
Having retired young, in 2017, Etches (34) still loves the fight game, more so that he has teamed up with Baimolda.
Their coming together was pure happenstance. Etches was in Thailand on holiday when he met up with Baimolda, a 24-year-old with over 100 amateur bouts. He immediately liked what he saw, not least the environment with its world-class gym, pleasant weather and food. The pair are now based there, living in next-door apartments with access to steam rooms, ice baths and sauna for recovery. Life is good.
Having dealt with promoter Rodney Berman for the Golden Gloves shows, Etches liked his way of doing business and promptly shot off an email. He was also drawn to the idea of working with Lennox Lewis, who is part of the new consortium that includes Berman and Adrian Ogun. Baimolda will thus be one of the first boxers to compete under this banner.
“I’m really, really excited,” said the Englishman. “Tim is a good kid – works hard, trains hard. He has unbelievable talent and strength. In the two months we’ve worked together, what I’ve seen is remarkable. The only thing we struggle with is a bit of sparring, so I’ve been getting in there. It’s tricky giving him advice [while we spar], but he’s come on in leaps and bounds. There’s good head movement, good defence. I’m heavy and still fit, but he’s starting to push me back. I used to spar with Ryan Rhodes and Kell Brook and they couldn’t do that.”
Etches is too canny to be deluded by Baimolda’s flattering record, noting that he’s mostly faced low-level opposition. “Still, to put someone to sleep the way he did in his last fight [two weeks ago] takes a lot of skill. With someone like Rodney backing us, we can’t fail. He’s the man, a good man.”
Unsurprisingly, Etches and his protégé, who talks English fluently, discuss “GGG” daily. He’s an enormous hero worldwide, more so in Kazakhstan where Golovkin is head of the Kazakhstan National Olympic Committee.
Etches was under no illusions about Golovkin in his prime. “When I was a fighter, he was the only guy I looked at and thought, stuff that, I don’t wanna fight him.”
Golovkin is thus a template Etches says they will aim to emulate given his heritage and how much success the middleweight enjoyed.
Coming to South Africa in May won’t intimidate Baimolda, who has already fought in Africa four times – on three occasions in Nigeria and once in Ghana – coming away with a win each time. Strangely, until recently he never even had a trainer, so his hook-up with Etches can only raise his ceiling.
Etches is keen for South Africans to witness what Baimolda brings to Emperors Palace. “He’s gonna be a wrecking ball.”
He hopes, too, that Lewis will get to size him up, having met the former heavyweight champion when he visited Spain and popped into the gym where Constantino Nanga, a Lewis pupil, trains.
Etches himself is enjoying his unexpected new role. He likely left the scene too early – “I was cutting corners, messing around, not getting fights” – but you sense that this new assignment has re-energised him.
“Hopefully I can be like a Freddie Roach or a Manny Steward,” he says.
Berman, too, is enthusiastic about the possibilities. “We all know how special GGG was, so let’s see what Baimolda brings. He’s got a lot to live up to, but he’s the sort of boxer we are looking for in our new consortium.”
