Janibek Alimkhanuly Withdraws From Title Defence Due To Severe Dehydration

Janibek Alimkhanuly has had to withdraw from his title defense against Andrei Mikhailovich, which was slated for Saturday, due to dehydration. 

 The IBF and WBO World Middleweight champion would be disappointed by the turn of events. 

 Albeit, the card will still go ahead, but the co-feature fight between unbeaten lightweight contender Raymond Muratalla (20-0, 16 KOs) and Tevin Farmer (33-5-1, 8 KOs) will now be the headliner in a ten-round clash. That’s an excellent fight, worthy of the headliner position. 

  Reports suggest that the 31-year-old Janibek (15-0, 10 KOs), who originally hails from Zhilandy, Kazakhstan but fights out of Oxnard, California, fainted while taking off weight for Friday’s weigh-in and was taken to the hospital. 

  As a result, Janibek’s title defense against the unbeaten Mikhailovich (21-0, 13 KOs) is now off. The two had been scheduled to meet in the main event on ESPN+ at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. Janibek’s Hospitalization “Janibek was cutting the final pounds last night when he fainted,” said his agent Egis Klimas.

  Janibek was immediately taken to Spring Valley Hospital Medical Center, where he was put on an IV. 

 The champion was found to be severely dehydrated and in no condition to fight.”   

 At Thursday’s final press conference, Janibek had looked comparatively bigger than Mikhailovich while the two were on stage posing for the face-off, suggesting that he would have to do a lot of hard work to take off the water weight in the short period he had before Friday’s weigh-in. 

  Janibek, nicknamed Qazaq Style probably needs to move up to Super Middleweight because at 31 he’s getting older, and staying in the 160-lb division might prove precarious.

  At 5'11" and a southpaw, if Janibek moves up to 168, he could become Canelo Alvarez’s mandatory with the IBF or WBO to get a quick title shot. There’s a lot of money for Janibek to make fighting Canelo, and likely a lot more than he would make by staying at 160 in a weight he’s struggling to make.

Janibek last fought in October last year at the Fort Bend Epicenter in Rosenberg. He defeated Vicenzo Gaultieri by TKO in round 6.

  Janibek seemed to gas out in his fight against Denzel Bentley in November 2022, and perhaps this was a sign of the effort that he had to take cutting down to make the 160-lb limit. 

 Alimkhanuly made his professional debut in October 2016 against Milton Nunez at the Almaty Arena,  Almaty.