Pirog-Ishida: Another easy defense for Dmitry

By Boxing News - 04/09/2012 - Comments

Image: Pirog-Ishida: Another easy defense for DmitryBy Dan Ambrose: WBO middleweight champion Dmitry Pirog (19-0, 15 KO’s) is really making a name for himself. It’s too bad the name he’s making isn’t one that a lot boxing fans are happy with, as the 31-year-old Pirog has been taking it easy ever since he won the World Boxing Organization title on July 31st against Daniel Jacobs.

He’s defended the WBO strap twice, beating less than well known contenders Javier Francisco Maciel and Gennady Martirosyan by easy victories. Just when you thought Pirog couldn’t find a lesser fighter than those two, he goes and digs up Japan’s Nobuhiro Ishida (24-7-2, 9 KO’s), fresh off a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision loss to Paul Williams last February in a fight that was almost painful to watch due to the one-sided nature of it. Pirog and Ishida will be fighting on May 1st at the Sport Complex in Krylatskoe, Russia.

I wish I could understand the rationale for Pirog facing Ishida coming off a loss. I can conceive of an idea in trying to come up with a good excuse, but my mind tells me it’s just another cherry-picking fight for Pirog to milk his World Boxing Organization title for as long as he can before someone comes up the ranks and beats him. In fairness to Pirog, the quality of the WBO’s top 15 contenders is pretty uneven.

I mean, there’s some decent fighters there like Sebastian Zbik, Martin Murray, Andy Lee, Jermain Taylor, Matthew Macklin, Peter Quillin, Grzegorz Proksa, and Marco Antonio Rubio. But the problem is, Pirog isn’t fighting those guys. He seems to be selecting the lesser fighters in between all those quality fighters and getting arguably a lot more mileage out of his title than he probably deserves. While I think Pirog is a good fighter, I have strong suspicions that he would flounder if put in with someone like Taylor, Lee, Murray and Quillin. Those guys hit hard and can box a little.

Ishida doesn’t have much chance here against Pirog unless he jumps him immediately like he did James Kirkland last year to try and blast him out before Pirog starts with his Floyd Mayweather Jr. imitation. Pirog will run around the ring using his Mayweather fighting style, and he’ll make Ishida look bad. What makes Pirog so good is that he can slug as well as box. He does both quite well, and it puts a lot of pressure on his opponents to try and figure out an avenue of attack. You can’t just go after him, because he punches with good power from odd angles. Ishida doesn’t have the power to keep Pirog honest. He may forgo the Mayweather stuff and just go after Ishida to try and get the fight over with early on May 1st.



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