Dmitry Pirog

At the age of eight, Pirog was a keen chess player and won some tournaments in the town of Temryuk, Russia. 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. In his amateur career, Pirog claims to have won 200 fights and lost 30, all of which prepared him for the professional ranks.

Pirog made his professional debut on 29 July 2005, scoring a sixth-round technical knockout against Sasun Oganyan, who also debuted. From late 2007 to early 2010, Pirog won many regional and international middleweight titles from both the WBC and WBO. 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 Al 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. Jacobs was unable to get back up after the referee waved off the fight as a knockout, making Pirog the new WBO middleweight champion.

Pirog's exposure to worldwide audiences grew overnight, as the fight took place on HBO pay-per-view as part of the undercard to Juan Manuel Márquez vs. Juan Díaz II. However, in his subsequent two years as champion, Pirog only managed to make three defences, the last of which took place on 1 May 2012. In this fight, Pirog scored a wide unanimous decision against Nobuhiro Ishida. On 25 August 2012, Pirog was stripped of his title by the WBO after choosing to fight WBA and IBO middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin instead of WBO interim champion Hassan N'Dam N'Jikam. 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 were 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.