Lithuania’s first professional boxing world champion Eimantas Stanionis will fight in Lithuania, Kaunas, for the first time in his professional career.
The 10 round fight will take place in Kaunas “Žalgiris” arena on September 27.
The event will be organised by the Lithuanian martial arts organisation UTMA, and Stanionis Promotions will promote it.
Stanionis was allowed to fight in Lithuania under permission from TGB Promotions.
After his recent loss against Jaron Ennis, Stanionis doesn’t hold any world titles.
No opponent has been announced for the fight yet. The undercard will include prominent Lithuanian boxers who are known for their amateur fighting pedigree but, on the fight night, will fight by professional rules.
Stanionis began his professional boxing career in 2017. He climbed his boxing Olympus in 2022 when he won the WBA world champion belt in a fight against Radzhab Butaev. This was the first time that a Lithuanian had won the professional boxing world champion belt.
Stanionis defended the title once, when he defeated Gabriel Maestre in 2024, but in the three years since winning the belt, the boxer fought only twice.
April 25, 2025, marked the day when Stanionis entered the most important fight of his life and the biggest in the history of Lithuanian boxing. In Atlantic City (New Jersey, USA), Stanionis faced 27-year-old American Jaron Ennis and had a chance not only to defend his title, but also to win the IBF title and a belt from one of the most prestigious and oldest boxing publications The Ring.
But Stanionis had to admit the advantage of his opponent – the fight ended after six rounds when the decision to withdraw from the bout was made by Stanionis’ corner. This was the first defeat for Stanionis in his entire professional boxing career.
A historic fight for Lithuanian combat sports
There has never been a professional boxing fight of this level in Lithuania and never a boxer of this level had a chance to showcase his talents to the home crowd. Although professional boxing fights have been held and are being held in Lithuania since the 1990s, they did not attract boxers of this level.
The closest that local sports fans had to seeing a boxer of this level in Lithuania was in 2017. On August 26, Virgilijus Stapulionis fought for the IBF Baltic middleweight champion belt in Vilnius. He faced Pavel Mamontov and, after 10 rounds, the judges declared by unanimous decision that Stapulionis had won the bout.
