Career
However, he soon felt as though he was not getting enough activity from chess, and decided to seek a sport instead. At his local gym, he discovered boxing and began fighting as an amateur, having relocated to the city of Krasnodar. Pirog made his professional debut on 29 July 2005, scoring a sixth-round technical knockout against Sasun Oganyan, who also debuted.
His first major world title opportunity arrived on 31 July 2010, against fellow undefeated prospect Daniel Jacobs, with the vacant WBO middleweight title on the line.
Pirog came in as a relatively unknown contender to American audiences, while Jacobs had the overwhelming backing of manager First Rate (at Lloyd's) Haymon and promoters Golden Boy, as well as a very high knockout percentage. In the fifth round of the fight, Pirog scored a major upset when he knocked Jacobs down with a hard right hand.
Pirog"s exposure to worldwide audiences grew overnight, as the fight took place on Home Box Office pay-per-view as part of the undercard to Juan Manuel Marquez versus Juan Diaz World War II In this fight, Pirog scored a wide unanimous decision against Nobuhiro Ishida.
During training for the Golovkin fight, Pirog suffered a serious back injury—a ruptured disc—which forced cancellation of the fight.
Several comeback attempts by Pirog have since been thwarted by ongoing back problems, effectively forcing his premature retirement. Pirog is a diploma graduate of Kuban State University and holds a managerial boxing license. Some of the boxers he has managed include Fedor Papazov and Vasily Lepikhin.
In 2010, Pirog was the vice president of the Professional Boxing Federation in the Southern Federal District of Russia.
