By Dan Ambrose: In yet another disappointing title defense, WBO middleweight champion Dmitry Pirog (19-0, 15 KO’s) will be making his third defense of his World Boxing Organization title next month on May 1st against #9 WBO Nobuhiro Ishida (24-7-2, 9 KO’s) at the Sport Complex Krylatskoe, in Moscow, Russia. For boxing fans hoping to see the 31-year-old Pirog step it up against better opposition, this is probably going to be bad news for them.

It wouldn’t have a bad fight between Pirog and the 36-year-old Ishida a few months ago before Ishida BADLY schooled by Paul Williams in a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision loss last February, but the fight is meaningless now. It looks awful when you have a champion like Pirog defending his title against a fighter that was just beaten soundly in their last fight like Ishida was in his loss to Williams on February 25th. That was an embarrassingly easy win for Williams, as he won the fight by the following judges’ scores: 120-108, 120-108 and 120-108. In other words, Ishida lost EVERY round in the 12 round fight. And then he gets picked out by Pirog to challenge for his WBO title. That’s just wrong. The WBO needs to block that move because it looks bad when you have champions defending their titles against fighters that aren’t just coming off of narrow decision defeat, but rather a real one-sided loss.

If Pirog had been taking on some real quality fighters since he captured the vacant WBO title in 2010, you could maybe overlook him taking an easy fight against Ishida, but Pirog hasn’t been facing any notable fighters since he won the fight. He’s defended his WBO title twice against these two fighters: Javier Francisco Maciel in an easy 12 round unanimous decision win in March 2011, and then Gennady Martirosyan in a 10th round stoppage in September 2011. When is Pirog going to start taking on good opposition? He needs to step it up before he ages out of the division. What a waste.