SAN ANTONIO — Coming off a loss and nearly a year of inactivity, Justin Pauldo could have been forgiven for requesting a soft touch in his first fight back. Instead, the 30-year-old Houston resident is coming back against a recent world champion.
Pauldo, 17-2 (8 KOs), will face former IBF junior lightweight titleholder Shavkatdzhon Rakhimov, 17-1-1 (14 KOs), in a 10-round lightweight bout this Saturday at Boeing Center at Tech Port in San Antonio, Texas. The fight will serve as the co-main event for this week’s ProBox TV card headlined by the featherweight bout between hometown favorite Ramon Cardenas and unbeaten Mexican Bryan Acosta.
Rather than express hesitancy about a fight that represents his first step-up to the world class level, Pauldo was all in.
“When I presented Justin with this fight, it took him all of ten minutes to accept the fight which says a lot about Justin’s mental and physical,” says manager Jolene Mizzone.
“I was excited when I was presented with the fight. Looking at the guy’s resume and being that he’s been a world champion, it’s a great opportunity for me to showcase my skills and push me to the next level,” added Pauldo, a resident of Houston, Texas who is originally from Orlando, Florida.
“With a win, it should put me in the top 10 or 15 in the world and put me in the running to get some of the bigger fights.”
The fight is the first for Pauldo since the end of February of 2024, when he lost a split decision to Miguel Madueno. The decision was hotly debated, though the fight itself gave Pauldo plenty to bring back to the gym to work on.
“I just had to refocus, of course I’m a competitor and I thought I won but at the end of the day it’s boxing and I just have to continue moving forward and continue to try to get better,” said Pauldo. The mistakes that I feel I did make, I just went back to the gym and tried to correct those.”
“Most people know he didn’t lose to Madueno, it was a terrible decision,” adds ProBox matchmaker Chris Glover. “I’m fully expecting Justin to show his class in this fight. I feel he’ll take Rakhimov out.”
Rakhimov, also 30, is a southpaw who now lives and trains out of Downey, California. The Tajikistan native has been off for even longer, having lost his world title by split decision to Joe Cordina in his last fight back in April of 2023. Though Rakhimov has fought a higher class of competition, including a stoppage win over Zelfa Barrett to win the belt in 2022 and a draw with Joseph Diaz for the vacant title in 2021, Pauldo isn’t overawed by him.
“He’s a pressure fighter but as far as skills there ain’t many things that I think he does great. He’s just a great pressure guy who comes forward pretty tough. I think I’m the more skilled fighter in every aspect,” said Pauldo, who spent part of the year off recovering from a minor hand injury.
Pauldo, who is trained by Ronnie Shields, made one addition to his camp for this fight, bringing in his brother and former pro Daquan Pauldo, who accrued a record of 17-2 (9 KOs) between 2011 and 2018.
“It just helped push me even more because he knows me better than anybody. He’s dealt with me all my life so he knows what I’m capable of,” said Pauldo.
Neither fighter is currently rated by any of the major sanctioning bodies, though Pauldo believes a win can change that. Mizzone says “the sky is the limit” for Pauldo should he emerge victorious. Glover, however, reckons the sky could just be the beginning: “He’ll be in line for a William Zepeda type next. He’s going to be in line to fight for a world title fight based off this performance. I believe Justin can compete with any of the world champions at lightweight and he’s gonna show that on Saturday night by taking out Rakhimov.’
Ryan Songalia is a reporter and editor for BoxingScene.com and has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler, The Guardian, Vice and The Ring magazine. He holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @ryansongalia.
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