Evgeny Gradovich was born in August 7, 1986 in the town of Igrim, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug – Yugra. The location of the town can be described as remote, with it’s closest city is about 1000 km away.
His first coach – Artur Pashpekin trained Evgeny until the age of 17. Then in order to develop his boxing career, Evgeny relocated to Izluchinsk, This town is located next to the quite big city of Nizhnevartovsk where Eugene could study in the Nizhnevartovsk State Humanitarian University while training with more experienced boxers, ensuring his boxing future would be brighter.
In this city, under the supervision of his second and the last trainer in his amateur career – Stanislav Berezin Evgeny has achieved next milestones:
– The winner of “Amber Gloves” 2006.
– Fifth on the national Russian championship 2007.
– The winner of “Arm Forces” 2007 and 2008.
– The winner of “The World Cup of Oil Countries” 2009.
– The champion of the “Ural Federal District” 2003-2008.
In 2007, eventually, Evgeny became a member of the Russian boxing team.
In 2010, Evgeny decided to get into professional sport, which could open him up to greater opportunities. At this time, Evgene’s boxing records was 150 fights, 126 wins and 24 losses.
His friend, Sergey Kovalev was already living in the states. Evgeny asked Sergey, if he can assist him in getting into American professional boxing. Shortly, Sergey organized a meeting for Evgeny with his manager – Egis Klimas (who was number 17th of the top 25 most influential people in the world of boxing, according to the authoritative boxing observer – Kevin Aioli). After watching Evgeny’s fights on video, Egis invited Eugene to the states.
He first settled in North Carolina, living and training in the boxing camp run by Don Terner who has trained 19 world boxing champions such as (Holyfield, Larry Holmes , the Klitschko brothers and others).
The absence of personal training or the lack of focusing on personal features of boxers made Evgeny move to the Robert Garcia’s gym Oxnard, CA. Robert is awarded a title as “the best world boxing coach” 2011-2013.Robert has become Evgeny’s second coach in his professional boxing career.
The whole Garcia’s team consisted of people of Mexico, who eventually gave Evgeny a nickname – “Mexican Russian” for his boxing style.
The first milestone event for Evgeny took place in 2013. Evgeny signed a contract with Top Rank. The same year Evgeny won a few important fights. That helped him to climb up in ranking.
The same year Evgeny got a chance to fight an IBF World Boxing Champion Billy Dib from Australia. The fight took place on the 1st of March 2013. Gradovich won that fight by split decision and became an IBF World Boxing Champion.
His aggressive boxing style was eventually noticed by people from HBO, who eventually included him into the “Gatti List” (the five most spectacular fighters). Evgeny is the number two in the list.
Evgeny is married and has a daughter.