Suray Robinson Mahmutovic is an up and coming boxer fighting out of San Francisco, California. Since he was born in 1998, he was destined to be a boxer. He was named after one of the most famous boxers of all time, Sugar Ray Robinson. Mahmutovic has trained his entire life and was in his first fights as early as just 10-years-old when he won his first fight.
In 2010 he won his First National Championship in Kansas City. Just a year later, when he was 12-years-old, Mahmutovic went head-to-head against one of the most feared boxers in the world for his age. This was against 14-year-old Derrell Gibbs, who had 66 fights under his belt and was a three-time national champion already. While many backed out of fighting against Gibbs, Mahmutovic faced him while he was two years younger. Gibbs won by a decision but Mahmutovic proved to be a tough opponent and let everyone know he was for real. Mahmutovic managed a silver medal in 2012.
To continue to build his fighter resume, he went on to win the National Jr Golden Gloves for his second National Championships Finals vs Clarence Green Jr. who was a three-time National Champion. Suray won the match decisively and became the No. 1 ranked fighter in the United States.
When Suray was looking to make the jump from an amateur fighter to a professional, he had a major breakthrough moment. He was fighting at 220 pounds and realized from the success of some other peers in a tournament that he was in that he could drop weight. Fighting at a lower weight to compete at a higher level for his professional career could take him to the next level. Suray was able to drop all of that weight to get down to 175 pounds, which made him quicker and more explosive as a boxer.
In his pre-fight interview against Hill, Mahmutovic mentioned that this was a major motivator for him to be the best boxer he could be saying, “I was pretty confident I could have the same success as them.” Referring to other big fighters at the top of the game in that tournament back in 2013.
In 2021, with a professional undefeated record of 3-0 with three knockouts, Suray was looking for a big fight to further boost his resume and to get signed to a boxing deal. With an undefeated record most fighters will choose not to test themselves and go for fights where they know they can continue to stack their record up higher early in their career. For Suray, he chose to go all in and fight another young and undefeated boxing star in Chino Hill. Hill was 6-0 going into their fight that was set to take place in December of 2021. Coming into the fight, Hill had two straight knockouts against good fighters.
This was set to be Suray’s biggest fight of his career and he was confident that he could come away with a win in this match. It began extremely well for Suray. He looked like he was well ahead in the match. After round one, Suray had landed more punches than Hill and looked to be in control.
Towards the end of round two Suray looked dominant landing 24 punches compared to just 14 for Hill. It was pretty clear that Suray had won the first rounds.
In round three, Suray continued to look good. The biggest turning point in the fight however, was when Hill landed a left hand shot to Suray off of a counter punch that sent Suray to the ground.
Aside from that third-round blow, Suray looked like he had won the other three rounds. He ended the fight with nearly double the amount of punches landed.
When it came down to the decision, many people thought the fight should go to Suray as he looked like he won three of the four rounds. Ultimately, the fight ended in a draw. A win in this fight would have been massive for Suray. A draw against a fighter of Hill’s caliber is still a good outcome for him, however.
Suray was confident in his abilities and fought a great match against Hill. Suray is still a young fighter with a lot of potential. He took a risk fighting against a boxer of Hill’s talent but it paid off for him. While this decision could have easily gone in Suray’s favor, a draw here still makes a statement that he is a boxer to watch out for in 2022.