Volg Zangief is a former World Amateur Champion and Russian boxer known for his exceptional outboxing skills and point-fighting technique—at least until he moved to Japan, where he adopted a much more aggressive, infighting approach that noticeably weighed on him. He grew up in a small town near St. Petersburg with his single mother, who was seriously ill, and he took up boxing specifically to earn money for her medical treatment.
His signature move is the "White Fang," a devastating vertical combination of a short, quick left uppercut followed by an incredibly fast and powerful chopping right. What sets Volg apart isn't just his technical skill, though. He's genuinely humble and polite—almost to a fault. His coach has pointed out that his greatest weakness is actually his kindness; Volg doesn't like hurting people and tends to hold back in fights. He only boxed in the first place to support his mother, though he eventually discovered a real passion for the sport.
After suffering consecutive losses to both Ippo and Sendou early in his career, Volg was forced to leave the Otawa Gym and return to Russia to care for his mother until her death. He later came back to Japan briefly to retrieve his old boxing gloves from Ippo before heading to America, and helped Ippo train for his match against Sawamura Ryuhei while he was there. In the U.S., fighting at the world stage under trainer Dankichi Hama, he climbed to 4th-ranked IBF Jr. Lightweight.
Fans often remember his early arc partly for the running gag about his rusty Japanese—most notably when he couldn't read kanji and repeatedly got himself into awkward situations with native speakers.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
