By Phil Rivera of Boxingtribune.com<\/p>\n
When Ukrainian middleweight Vitalii Kopylenko (22-0, 12 KOs) takes the ring February 28 in Hammond, Indiana, he\u2019ll do so knowing that his fight with Cerresso Fort (17-2-1, 11 KOs) will pale in comparison to the ongoing conflict in his homeland. At the forefront of the civil unrest is fellow boxer and heavyweight champ Vitali Vitalii Kopylenko2Klitschko, whose UDAR party is among the groups seeking a position within the Ukrainian government.<\/p>\n
Although the problems in his country are important to Kopylenko; he hopes his participation in the 2014 Boxcino tournament gives his people a pleasant distraction.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that what we can do in the ring can give confidence to my people in my country,\u201d said Kopylenko.<\/p>\n
The 30-year-old has the best record in the 160-pound bracket and his younger opponent, Fort, is coming off a loss to Caleb Truax in September. But, Kopylenko doesn\u2019t believe a fight is won on paper.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all about what will happen in the ring,\u201d Kopylenko said.<\/p>\n
Like fellow tournament competitor Sena Agbeko, Kopylenko, will be making his U.S. debut in the first round of Boxcino; where he hopes to earn the respect of fight fans throughout the globe.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very excited, I have been waiting for this for a long time and I can\u2019t wait to prove myself in the world arena of boxing,\u201d said Kopylenko.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Ukrainian middleweight Vitalii Kopylenko (22-0, 12 KOs) takes the ring February 28 in Hammond, Indiana, he\u2019ll do so knowing that his fight with Cerresso Fort (17-2-1, 11 KOs) will pale in comparison to the ongoing conflict in his homeland. At the forefront of the civil unrest is fellow boxer and heavyweight champ Vitali Vitalii Kopylenko2Klitschko, whose UDAR party is among the groups seeking a position within the Ukrainian government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[197],"class_list":["post-6808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-vitalii-kopylenko"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6808"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6835,"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6808\/revisions\/6835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}