Zsolt Erdei vs. Samson Onyango on November 20th

By Jason Kim: Former WBO light heavyweight and WBC cruiserweight champion Zsolt Erdei (31-0, 17 KO’s) will be coming off of a one year retirement when he takes on Kenyan Samson Onyango (20-6, 13 KO’s) on November 20th in an eight round bout on the undercard of the WBC middleweight clash between champion Sergio Martinez vs. Paul Williams at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Erdei, 36, has signed with American promoter Lou Dibellla Erdei has spent his entire career fighting out of Germany, where Erdei held the World Boxing Organization light heavyweight title for five years from 2004 to 2009. Erdei’s time as a champion was marked by the dreadful opposition he faced over and over again.

The light heavyweight division was a lot weaker when Erdei held the title, and he was lucky not to have to face guys like Jean Pascal, Chad Dawson, Glen Johnson and Tavoris Cloud. Perhaps the biggest names on Erdei’s resume while holding down the WBO title were fighters like Thomas Ulrich, Hugo Hernan Garay, and Julio Cesar Gonzalez.

Erdei moved up in weight to the cruiserweight division in November 2009, and defeated Giacobbe Fragomeni by a close 12 round majority decision. Erdei didn’t look at all impressive in that fight, and looked chunky and slow. Erdei is a lot better off at light heavyweight, but it’s unclear what he can accomplish at this point in his career.

I wouldn’t like his chances against champions Cloud, Pascal and Beibut Shumenov. I see all those fighters beating him. Erdei might be able to get by Jurgen Brahmer, but it might take a while to get a shot at him because there’s a line of fighters waiting for their chance, one of them being Nathan Cleverly, an undefeated fighter with impressive skills. That’s another fighter that I see beating Erdei.

4 Responses to “Zsolt Erdei vs. Samson Onyango on November 20th”