Sergey Lipinets

Lipinets was born on Martuk, Kazakhstan, but moved to Russia at the age of 9. Lipinets originally competed as a kickboxer, medaling in competitions like the 2012 W.A.K.O. European Championships and the 2013 World Combat Games.

After a brief amateur boxing career in which he went 35-5, Lipinets turned pro in 2014. After winning 10 pro bouts, Lipinets faced Lenny Zappavigna in an IBF eliminator. The winner would become the mandatory challenger to the IBF champion, the winner of an April 2017 bout between Ricky Burns and Julius Indongo. Lipinets proved to be too much for Zappavigna, as the latter went down during round 5 before being counted out following a right straight from Lipinets in round 8. Both fighters suffered several cuts during the fight. Following Indongo's win over Burns, Lipinets tried to start negotiations with the IBF champion. However, the IBF granted Indongo an exception to allow him to unify all the major light welterweight titles against Terence Crawford. Following Crawford's win over Indongo, the IBF ordered Crawford to defend his title against Lipinets. Lipinets stated that the IBF title was "stolen from him". As Crawford didn't plan to return to the ring before the IBF's deadline, he vacated the IBF title just 11 days after defeating Indongo. The IBF ordered Lipinets to face Akihiro Kondo for their vacant title.