By Thomas Gerbasi

Radivoje Kalajdzic doesn’t know how he’ll feel should he leave Stockton, California with the IBF world light heavyweight title the morning after his bout with Artur Beterbiev.

Oh, it will feel good to change his life and the lives of his family as a world champion, but as far as the actual emotions in the ring on Saturday night go, he hasn’t even thought about them. All that matters to him right now is the fight. The title is a bonus, one he never even thought would be part of his journey.

“Right now, all I’m picturing is how the fight’s gonna play out and my game plan,” said Kalajdzic. “I’m picturing me going in the ring, what I’m gonna do, executing it, and I just want the win. But of course when I get the win, the belt is gonna come with it, so when they say, “And the new…” I don’t know how I’m gonna feel, honestly, because I never dreamed of winning a championship. I actually quit boxing before and somebody talked me into going into the pros, so I never thought about fighting on this stage and never had a dream of being a champion. So I really don’t know how I’m gonna feel after I win.”

If you want to go back even further, it’s a wonder that the 27-year-old is even here, considering that he survived being born just before the Bosnian war broke out in 1992. And after he and his family lived as refugees for several years after leaving home for a better life, ultimately settling in the United States when Kalajdzic was seven, the 175-pound contender credits his parents for being the ones that fought and suffered to give him a better life.

“I went through it, but I was small,” he said. “My parents were the ones having me go from place to place, but I don’t remember it. I was young when that was happening, and my parents had a tough life, but I didn’t. They provided everything for me and they made sure we had everything good.”

Twenty years later, the Floridian is the one in the role of fighter and provider as a father of two children, with one on the way. It’s the job he truly embraces, and like his parents, he’s willing to do whatever it takes to make sure his kids are taken care of. So when his right hand was injured and only getting worse following his 2016 stoppage of previously unbeaten Travis Peterkin, he was not only willing to walk away, but he did, getting a job working construction with his father to keep food on the table. And as far as he was concerned, his days in the ring were over.

“Big time,” Kalajdzic said. “I told myself I was done with boxing. I got a job and I wasn’t even thinking about boxing because my hand was getting worse and worse. I had surgery, I had PRP injections, everything. My hand was so bad I gave up on boxing.”

It was a quiet end to a promising career, and despite scoring 22 pro wins, what most would remember Kalajdzic for was the one loss on his record, a highly controversial 2016 defeat to unbeaten Olympian Marcus Browne at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. It was a bitter defeat for Kalajdzic to take, but knowing that most observers believed he deserved to take the split decision victory eased the sting a bit. And as he admits, he may have gotten more attention for losing than he would have by getting the judges’ nod.

“It hurts on my record because I would like to be undefeated, but I got over it the next day from all the social media support,” he said. “Clearly in my heart, I knew I won, so it didn’t hurt me that bad other than having that one loss on my record. But everybody, when they bring my name up, they’re like, ‘Oh, he lost to Browne but he really won that fight.’ I think I got more exposure because of the loss.”

Handing Peterkin his first pro loss five months later raised the stock of “Hot Rod” even higher, but having only one hand to work with in the ring was a handicap he just couldn’t bear if he was going to fight the best light heavyweights in the world.

“My hand got so bad, I stopped boxing and got a job,” he said, but eventually, hope arrived in an unlikely form.

“I got stem cell injections, and that was the only thing that worked, so after a while it started getting better and better and it changed everything around. Now it’s fully healed and better than it ever was.”

Kalajdzic lost a year of his career in 2017, but in 2018, he returned, stopping Brad Austin and Alex Theran in a round each. Now he wanted more, and he got it.

“Once I started training again, they told me that I was gonna get a big fight and just to be patient,” said the DiBella Entertainment roster member. “I believed in them, and I landed the big fight and everything worked out perfectly.”

That’s the good news. The bad is that to get that world title belt, he’ll have to go through Russian wrecking machine Beterbiev, who is 13-0 with 13 knockouts heading into Saturday’s bout at Stockton Arena. But Kalajdzic is far from intimidated by the champion, who is coming off a fourth-round finish of Callum Johnson last October.

“I see a power puncher that comes forward, but he’s hittable,” said Kalajdzic. “He’s been dropped twice, and I have power as well, so it’s gonna be a fun night. I’m a come forward fighter too. All my fights, I come forward and press the issue so it’s going to be interesting.”

It will be for those of us watching simply because of the possibility for mayhem in Stockton. But for Kalajdzic, interesting means a big fight against a world champion with the possibility of going back home to Florida as a world champion. Not bad for someone who thought his career was over in 2017.

“Ever since I came back from my hand injury I’ve been wanting a big fight,” Kalajdzic said. “I didn’t want to fight locally or on someone’s undercard. I wanted a big fight so I could showcase my skills, and I got it and I think this is the perfect opponent. It’s crazy. Two years ago I was working construction. Look at me now, on ESPN fighting for a world title.”