In April 2017 Billy Joe Saunders, the WBO world middleweight champion, sat at a press conference for his next defence and did what he did best: he taunted his opponent. Across the table was Avtandil Khurtsidze, a short, bull-necked Georgian known as the mini Mike Tyson, who took the bait. It sold tickets. Outside the ring, both men were linked, by the authorities and in the press, to powerful figures in organised crime. That fight never happened. Within weeks the challenger was in a federal cell, and then fighting for his life.
Kutaisi
Khurtsidze was born in Kutaisi, Georgia, where toughness was a requirement. His amateur gyms were relics of the Soviet system: concrete floors, chain-wrapped bags, military discipline. At five foot three he was told he was too small for middleweight, and fought as if he had not heard. He did not outbox people; he overwhelmed them.
In 2017 at Leicester Arena he met Tommy Langford, unbeaten and confident. Five rounds later Khurtsidze had knocked him out and become the interim WBO world champion. He left the ring with a belt and a contract with Billy Joe Saunders's name on it.
Hatfield
Saunders came from Hatfield, from proud traveller stock, and grew up in a world where fighting was an old tradition before it was a sport. He boxed on fields, on caravan sites and behind pubs long before he boxed under lights. He became the first traveller to represent Great Britain at the Olympics, and as a professional he was a slick, elusive counter-puncher who made opponents miss. Wins over John Ryder, Chris Eubank Jr and Andy Lee hardened his reputation, and by the end of 2016 he was unbeaten and the WBO world middleweight champion.
He was also inconsistent, and promoters were losing patience. Underneath it all the media kept returning to his alleged closeness to Daniel Kinahan, then heavily involved in boxing and being hunted by Irish authorities. When Khurtsidze flattened Langford and became his mandatory challenger, it felt like a collision course: the technician with the world title against the wrecking ball coming through the door.
Brighton Beach
While Khurtsidze trained for the biggest night of his life, another world was watching him. Razhden Shulaya was a thief in law, a criminal aristocrat in the old Soviet prison hierarchy, and head of what prosecutors called the Shulaya enterprise, with networks from New York to Georgia, Ukraine and Russia. Federal prosecutors described a sprawling criminal organisation: slot machine fraud using devices to predict payouts, cargo theft including 10,000 pounds of stolen chocolate, untaxed cigarettes, forgery, card skimming, illegal poker rooms, extortion of gamblers, and a crew that drugged drunk men and robbed them.
According to federal prosecutors, Khurtsidze was more than a fighter. He was the organisation's collector, a man who could make problems go away. One surveillance clip allegedly showed him punching a confidential informant; another showed him negotiating a deal for stolen cigarettes. And the network, prosecutors said, was backing his rise in boxing.
On 7 June 2017, weeks before the Saunders fight, the FBI moved. Dozens were arrested across several states. Shulaya was taken down, and the mandatory challenger for the WBO title was listed as defendant number 10. The fight was gone and his interim belt stripped. He never made it to London.
MDC Brooklyn
Awaiting sentence at MDC Brooklyn, among rival ethnic gangs, the Russian mob were not welcome. One evening a dispute between Shulaya and a member of a Latin American prison gang turned violent, weapons came out, and both men from Brighton Beach were attacked. Khurtsidze is said to have knocked out several attackers, but he was stabbed repeatedly. Court papers described multiple haematomas and stab wounds, and Crime Russia reported that he suffered the worst of it, including facial lacerations.
Weeks later, still healing, he was found guilty of racketeering conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy and sentenced to ten years in federal prison. Shulaya received 45 years.
After the fight that never was
Saunders carried on, but the cracks showed: long spells of inactivity, cancelled fights, flashes of brilliance. In 2021 it all came down to a super middleweight unification with Canelo Alvarez in front of more than 70,000 people in Texas. Saunders boxed well early, but an uppercut shattered his eye socket and the fight was stopped on his stool. It was his first defeat, and his career never truly recovered.
Outside the ring he was repeatedly sanctioned by boxing authorities for conduct bringing the sport into disrepute after a series of widely condemned videos and incidents. He apologised, was fined and was suspended.
By then Kinahan, his close friend and adviser, had left boxing and had a bounty placed on his head by the American authorities, alongside his brother, father and associates. Unlike many in boxing, Saunders stayed loyal. There has never been any suggestion that Saunders himself was involved in organised crime.
Khurtsidze has served his sentence and is out of prison. He still hopes to persuade Saunders out of retirement to stage the fight that never happened. It would be a fairy-tale ending to a dramatic story.