By David Finger
Photos: Team Razvan Cojanu

Fightnews.com

Boxing is a funny sport. In an age when every fighter has a library of fights on YouTube, and where Fightnews often provides detailed fight reports from every club show in every corner of the lower 49 states, fight fans can still be thrown a curveball. Boxing still finds a way to give fans that true Rocky Balboa story: the mystery fighter who just comes out of nowhere and somehow finds himself in a title fight nobody was expecting to see him in. He sometimes falls flat…in fact he almost always comes up short. The last heavyweight mystery man, Gerald Washington, stepped in on a months notice against WBC champion Deontay Wilder in February. And although he acquitted himself well, he ultimately was stopped.

Sure the upset is as old as boxing, and there have been no shortage of last minute substitutes in the sport. But there has almost never been a heavyweight who could check off both of those boxes and come away with the world title. The last time a heavyweight came in on very short notice and shocked the world was in 1991, when Bert Cooper came in on a few days notice to fill in for an injured Francisco Damiani (who was a late substitute for Mike Tyson). Cooper became the first man to technically drop the iron-chinned Evander Holyfield, and nearly stopped him in round three before Holyfield roared back and scored the TKO in round seven. It was a tremendous fight, but ultimately a losing one for Cooper. In the end Cooper’s performance was like the 16th seeded team that gives the top team in the nation a scare in the NCAA college basketball tournament. Although it was more than fans were expecting, the underdog still fell short, and basketball returned to normal the following day.

Well, for Romanian boxer Razvan Cojanu, the WBO #14 ranked heavyweight, he plans to do the unthinkable. He plans to end North Carolina’s run on day one. He plans to upset the undefeated WBO heavyweight champion of the world in his backyard…and do it on less than two weeks notice.

To call Cojanu (16-2, 9 KOs) little known would be a gross exaggeration. He is completely and utterly unknown to all but the most die hard boxing fans. But then again, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

To be honest, I don’t want to tell nobody nothing until after the fight,” Cojanu told Fightnews this weekend. “I’d like it to stay like that: undercover. I am 100% sure a lot of people will have a big shock. It’s better like that. I’m coming from the dark. I’m under cover. Me, my coach, everything is undercover.”

It’s a tall order, but the 200-1 underdog (yes, you read that correctly) not only is confident that he will shock the world on May 6th in South Auckland, but that he will have fun in the process.”

“Me, I have no pressure on my shoulders,” Cojanu said of his upcoming title fight. “You understand? I have no pressure on my shoulders…because I don’t have nothing to lose. Tell me what I have to lose? Nothing! I’m going to go over there and I’m going to have fun. And it’s going to be 100% a much better fight than Parker-Fury.”

Boxing is a funny sport. Sometimes history finds a way of repeating itself and we don’t realize it until after it has happened. In 1990 Mike Tyson had what looked like a tune-up before his scheduled super fight with undefeated #1 contender Evander Holyfield. Enter James “Buster” Douglas. Fans of Cojanu can’t help but notice how the discussion since Saturday has shifted to a possible Joseph Parker-Anthony Joshua unification fight later this year. All Parker has to do is get past Cojanu and the first heavyweight super fight since Lewis-Tyson becomes a reality. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, in boxing if something can go wrong, it almost always does. And Cojanu is the guy whose fists can throw a monkey wrench in the best laid plans of team Parker. If Joseph Parker is looking past his opponent on May 6th and if Cojanu can fight the perfect fight…we could be pushing Buster Douglas off the number #1 spot for greatest heavyweight upset of all time. And unlike most last minute substitutes, Cojanu has an ace up his sleeve. Having been a sparring partner for Parker as he prepared for Hughie Fury, and before that Alexander Dimitrenko, Cojanu feels extremely comfortable with Parker in the ring and feels that he has a pretty good idea what the Kiwi brings to the table.

I think I know about him much more than he knows about me,” Cojanu said of his sparring sessions with Parker. “He was doing his best over there and me…I was having fun.”

Cojanu felt that although he didn’t learn a lot from his experience as a sparring partner for the heavyweight champion, he nonetheless gained a lot from the experience.

“To be honest…I didn’t learn anything,” Cojanu said. “It was just some experience. But not because it was Parker, I didn’t learn much even with Alexander Povetkin (when part of Povetkin’s camp). After this camp, I realize my value and I start believing more in myself. With a guy who is Povetkin and Parker you realize training with them and sparring with them where you are. (You see) you’re value.”

It isn’t a surprising to think that Cojanu didn’t go into his camp with Parker looking for much other than the opportunity to help Parker prepare for Hughie Fury. But in a story that can only happen in boxing, the sparring partner now is tasked with trying to derail the guy he spent weeks trying to help out.

Cojanu also knows that title fights don’t fall off trees, especially when you are ranked at #14 and aren’t exactly a household name.

“I got the offer…I didn’t entertain it,” Cojanu said of the negotiations for the fight. “When they presented the fight (to me) I (knew) was going to take the fight. Every fighter is waiting for this and I said yes from the beginning.”

It was a day that the young kid from Voinesti, Romania dreamed about ever since turning pro in 2011. But the celebration was short lived.

“I was surprise and I was happy. But now we got one week before the fight. We are looking forward to the fight. I am excited.”

For a fighter who came into this fight an unknown, there is one part of the world where this fight is very much the topic of conversation: Cojanu’s native country of Romania.

“The response (in Romania) is pretty well. I was impressed.” Cojanu added. “Almost every newspaper from Romania showed this fight.”

And unlike much of the boxing world, the Romanian press is not counting out their local contender.

“Like they said in the newspaper, next week I’m going to change the history of heavyweight boxing. Nobody every fought for the WBO title from Romania. Next week we make history. It’s the week we change history for Romania.”

The idea of Cojanu becoming Romania’s first heavyweight champion is enough to excite fans from Bucharest to Timișoara, but even the most diehard Romanian fan would have been forgiven if they assumed the former amateur standout would never get the opportunity. After over 300 amateur fights Cojanu would see his professional career sputter out of the gate as he lost a six round majority decision in his professional debut to a journeyman named Alvaro Morales. Although Morales had a huge edge in experience, his fight against the rookie Cojanu was his 20th professional fight; it was still a major setback for the Romanian.

You know what was happening (in the) first fight, I had a bad team.” Cojanu said of his fight with Morales. “I just arrived in the United States and (my trainer) wasn’t training me so well. I got in the ring two weeks later with no training and just fight a guy with (twenty) fights (as a) professional. I call it a mistake. It was a mistake from my team. Now I changed my team, I don’t have my manager from that time. You know the show goes on. It’s the past.”

Even with the loss Cojanu remained confident that his day would come and he would get his chance at a world title.

“Yes,” Cojanu said when asked if he envisioned a world title fight after starting his career 0-1. “Why not? I consider myself a good fighter.”

Cojanu came back and slowly built his career up, although there have been some scary moments along the way. After winning his next thirteen fights Cojanu suffered a second loss to Donovan Dennis in April of 2015. An ugly split decision win over journeyman Grover Young followed and many would have been forgiven if they elected to close the book on Cojanu after that. But in late 2016 Cojanu seemed to finally put it all together in the ring after winning the vacant WBO China Zone Heavyweight title against Chinese prospect Zhi Yu Wu. Cojanu destroyed Wu in two rounds to win the title and subsequently broke into the world rankings. But Cojanu recognizes that Joseph Parker is no Zhi Yu Wu.

The last one…that one was piece of cake,” Cojanu said of his fight with Wu. “I knocked the guy out in the second round. I didn’t give him a chance.”

He showed a lot of improvement against Wu, and flashes of brilliance. But he will need to show a lot more against Parker, and it will have to be more than just flashes. But although Cojanu seems to have little chance against Parker, stranger things have happened in the squared circle. Maybe Razvan Cojanu will be little more than a footnote on our way to Joseph Parker-Anthony Joshua. But maybe not. After all, boxing is a funny sport.