My Greatest Game: Third time lucky and out of the box, how Amit Panghal outslugged Hasanboy Dusmatov

Making the jump from good to great takes a huge leap of faith.

When it comes to sports, that leap is often a landmark win when the athlete punches above his weight.

Indian boxer Amit Panghal, currently the world No. 1 flyweight pugilist, did just that. And the hurdle he needed to overcome to make his transition into a world-beater was none other than Olympic champion Hasanboy Dusmatov.

Despite his countless triumphs in the ring, Amit Panghal still holds his Asian Games 2018 final win against the Uzbekistan boxer as his greatest fight ever.

“I think that bout was my best till date. It changed a lot for me,” Amit Panghal told the Olympic Channel.

There was a good reason for it too. Hasanboy was Amit Panghal’s arch-nemesis heading into that fight.

Ever since Amit Panghal broke through on the international stage in 2017, his talent was beyond reproach. But in the same division as Rio 2016 light flyweight gold medallist Hasanboy Dusmatov, the Indian needed to beat the Uzbek icon to assert himself.

Amit Panghal’s first two tries, though, yielded little. At the 2017 Asian championships, the Indian lost to Hasanboy in the semi-finals and had to settle for bronze.

Come the rematch at the 2017 world championships in Hamburg, Germany, Hasanboy had Amit Panghal’s measure yet again in the quarter-finals.

“I lost on both occasions against Hasanboy and that too by 5-0 scorelines. Defeating him became a goal in life and my training was specifically curated towards that,” the Indian recalled.

“I trained myself hard to counter his unconventional footwork and combination punches,” Panghal added.

Amit Panghal would get his shot at redemption soon enough as the two squared off in the final of the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia.

“During the build-up to the bout, the only thing that was on my mind was how to beat him and break my jinx. I stayed up the night before the bout running my training in my head again and again. It was important that I won,” Amit Panghal stated.

The win didn’t come easy. Amit Panghal managed to just about edge out the Uzbek boxer by a 3-2 split scoreline.

Amit Panghal also revealed that he had to steer away from his natural game to have a shot at beating Hasanboy.

“Before that match, I always took my time in the first round. I used to start slow and assess my opponents in the first round before going on the offensive in the following rounds. But that strategy had cost me against Hasanboy in the past.

“I knew I couldn’t afford to start that slow. I needed to go on the front foot from the first round itself and devised my strategy accordingly. I won that match 3-2,” Amit Panghal said.

The win helped Amit Panghal turn a corner.

A year later, Amit Panghal moved up to the 52kg or flyweight category and interestingly enough, Hasanboy, too, made the same transition.

The two rivals met again in the 2019 Asian championships quarter-finals and this time, Amit Panghal scored a much more dominating 4-1 win en route to the gold medal. The win also helped level Panghal’s head-to-head record against his former nemesis at 2-2.

The 2019 world championships silver medallist, though, counts the first win over the Uzbek as his career-defining moment.

“Beating the Olympic champion infused a tremendous confidence in me and I could feel that the win had made me a better boxer. Having lost against twice and then finding a way to beat him made me believe in myself even more. I knew I could beat anyone in the world after that,” he said.

Amit Panghal will be out to make the best use of the confidence boost when he takes the ring for his maiden Olympics in Tokyo later this year.

The Indian has already qualified for the Tokyo Games and is hard at work to earn the same title as his now-vanquished nemesis - that of an Olympic champion.