Israil Madrimov heads home to Tashkent on December 10, meeting Seymur Isayev at Humo Arena in a bid to keep his world title hopes alive at 154 pounds. Holding the No. 4 spot in The Ring rankings, the former WBA junior middleweight champion has secured only a single victory since Terence Crawford took his belt in 2024.

This 10-round main event offers Madrimov a clear shot to deliver a sharper, more complete performance than his January decision over Luis David Salazar. While that win halted a two-fight slide, he rarely stepped on the gas to finish the job. Against Isayev, the key test will be his offensive flow, specifically whether he chains combinations behind his signature right hand instead of landing single punches and hopping back out to reset.

That precise right hand was the weapon that convinced some viewers he deserved the nod over Crawford.

Madrimov lost his WBA junior middleweight title to Terence Crawford in August 2024. In that fight, rounds 10, 11, and 12 were right there on the table. Instead of stepping into the fire and making it an ugly, uncomfortable dogfight, Madrimov looked reluctant to engage on the inside with the older fighter.

He let Crawford outwork him down the stretch, staying passive on the outside while Crawford stole the swing rounds on pure activity to take a unanimous decision on cards of 116-112 and 115- 113 twice.

When you are fighting an established pound-for-pound star on a massive card, you cannot win swing rounds by being defensive and selective; you have to take the decision out of the judges’ hands. Madrimov failed to do that.

In Madrimov’s 12-round decision loss to Vergil Ortiz Jr. in February 2025, Ortiz Jr. exposed the conditioning and physical engine side of that problem. Madrimov moved frequently in the first half of the fight, using up energy rather than staying in the pocket to get the better of Ortiz Jr. He was landing the better shots, marking up Vergil Jr’s face quite badly.

However, by the sixth, Madrimov hit an absolute wall around round six. He looked completely winded, his footwork slowed from darting angles into sluggish lateral retreat, and his punch output fell off a cliff. Ortiz Jr. took advantage of the drop-off from Madrimov to dominate the last half of the fight to get the decision.

If Madrimov cannot figure out how to put his foot down when an opponent is ripe for the taking, or if his gas tank cannot support more than six rounds of a fast-paced contest, the division elite will simply do what Crawford and Ortiz did: survive his initial bag of tricks, push the pace, and outwork him down the stretch.

Against Isayev, watch what Madrimov is still doing in rounds eight, nine and ten. If he’s still moving sharply and throwing the right hand with conviction, that will tell us more about his chances at another title than a fast start in Tashkent.