Andrew Golota faces Przemyslaw Saleta on February 23rd in Poland

By Boxing News - 01/29/2013 - Comments

golota2By Allan Fox: In a battle of aging Polish heavyweights, the 45-year-old Andrew Golota (41-8-1, 33 KO’s) will return to the ring next month to fight 44-year-old Przemyslaw Saleta (43-7, 21 KO’s) in a Polish clash at the Ergo Arena, Plac Dwoch Miast 1, 8—344 Gdansk, Poland.

The fight is scheduled for 10 rounds, but it’ll be a miracle if it makes it to the 6th. One of the these bog heavyweights are going down early in this fight, and he couldn’t be surprised in the least if it were Golota, although I would think that he would be the favorite just based on his superior talent during his career.

It’s hard to say what we’ll get from either fighter because it’s been eons since either of them fought. Saleta, 6’3 1/2” hasn’t fought in seven years since beating Ed Perry in February 2006. Before that, Saleta hadn’t really done much career-wise in terms of beating any notable fighters.

Saleta did lose to Oliver McCall, Luan Krasniqi and Sinan Samil Sam. Saleta did beat Krasniqi to capture the EBU heavyweight title back in July 2002. However, Saleta lost his European Boxing Union title in his next fight to Samil Sam.

Golota is the more interesting fighter because he actually had enough talent to be among the top world contenders in the 1990s. However, he lost his biggest fights against Riddick Bowe, Lamont Brewster, Lennox Lewis, Mike Tyson, Michael Grant and John Ruiz. The one fight where Golota arguably deserved to win a world title was in his fight against IBF heavyweight champion Chris Byrd in April 2004, which was scored a 12 round draw. That must have been hugely disappointing for Golota because he fought well enough to deserve a victory but instead he had to settle for a draw.

Golota has lost his last two fights against Tomasz Adamek and Ray Austin and looked not impressive in each.

If Golota doesn’t suffer an injury in this fight, he should be able to get past Saleta without any problems. Where Golota goes from there is anyone’s guess. It’s perhaps not a good idea for Golota to get any ideas towards going for a world title shot because there are too many important fights that he would have to win against much younger fighters for him to get a title shot, and it could take years for him to get in that position.



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