Despite Khurtsidze piling on constant pressure and being unfazed by N'Dam N'Jikam's shots, he lost a close unanimous decision with scores of 117-111, 115-114 and 115-114.
[6] Khurtsidze rebounded from the controversial loss to N'Dam N'Jikam by returning to his native Georgia for his next fight, the first time he had done so since his professional debut.
Khurtsidze applied his trademark aggression to continuously stalk Cendrowski all over the ring, and landed powerful punches with his left hand throughout the duration of the fight.
[9] Khurtsidze would go on to beat Duran on 18 December 2011 by majority decision, with scores of 114-114, 114-113 and 115-113, to capture the vacant WBC Silver middleweight title.
Despite being the betting underdog, Khurtsidze relentlessly pressed Douglas all night, dropping him in the third and seventh rounds, and eventually forced the referee to stop the action, winning the bout via tenth-round technical knockout.
[14] Khurtsidze connected with a left hook to win the bout by fifth-round technical knockout, bringing his streak of consecutive TKO victories to six, and securing a world title shot against Saunders.
[17][18] Khurtsidze would ultimately never fight Saunders as he was convicted of racketeering and wire fraud conspiracy and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in September 2018, effectively bringing his boxing career to an abrupt end.