Zagreb star 'Archie' Goricki continues winning streak
Croatian featherweight star Arijan 'Archie' Goricki (13-1-1, 6KO) defeated experienced veteran Giorgi Gachechiladze (16-46-1, 9KO) by unanimous decision after 10 rounds at featherweight in the Hermann-Hepper-Halle, Tuebingen, Germany.
'Archie' won all 10 rounds on two of the judges scorecards (91-99, 100-90 x2) which was broadcast live on Fight24.tv.
The 25-year-old from Zagreb said post-fight, "From the first round, I started to implement the tactics I made with my coach. The opponent was exactly as we expected him to be, so he didn't surprise us too much, from the first round he started throwing punches and moving forward and didn't stop until the last bell. I kept my opponent at a distance and didn't let him get close to me. In the second round, I hit him with a left hook and dropped him to the floor but the referee ruled that he had slipped, which was not the case. I won every round of the fight to secure a clean unanimous victory in Germany."
He continued to discuss the fight in detail, "The opponent boxed quite dirty and hit me several times below the belt, in the crotch, in the back of the head and several times with the head, which is why I got a bump on the forehead. I'm glad this was the last time I fight someone that's not on my level, unfortunately no one else was available so I had to accept a fight against an opponent who fights two weight categories above me. Although we could have ended this fight with a knockout, we did not force it so that an unnecessary injury would not occur and thus ruin our plans for December when we plan to have a big fight and show everyone who I really am, and I wanted to test how the left hand would withstand blows after recovering from a broken hand in June 2022.
Goricki is Croatia's No.1 featherweight and was well supported by his kinfolk on fight night, "I would like to thank all the Croats who traveled from another city just to come support me in my first main event fight in Germany.
"I would also like to thank my team for doing a great job. Thanks to my trainer Marko Bracic, we have a recipe for improvement and progress day by day and that's why I think we will achieve everything we plan in boxing. I'm a perfectionist and it's hard to deal with me, but my team knows that and that's why we keep improving every time we appear in the ring, thanks to them (Marko Bracic, Mario Spoljar, Zeljko Pintar)
"Many thanks to my friends and sponsors who have been with me all this time and support me on my way to rank on the world stage, without them nothing would be possible, and who helped me financially make this, as well as everything up to now, possible, the fight."