Sakio Bika faces Nikola Sjekloca this Saturday, February 16th in Atlantic City, New Jersey

By Boxing News - 02/11/2013 - Comments

bika2By Dan Ambrose: This Saturday night, unbeaten #1 WBC contender Nikola Sjekloca (25-0, 7 KO’s) will have a tough test on his hands against #2 WBC Sakio Bika (30-5-2, 21 KO’s) in a WBC super middleweight title eliminator bout. The winner of this bout faces former IBF 168 lb. champion Lucian Bute for the WBC super middleweight title. Bika, 33, will likely win this fight due to his much better power and experience.

Bika lost to Lucian six years ago by a 12 round unanimous decision. However, a lot has changed since then, as Bute was badly beaten by Carl Froch last May, and Bute didn’t look good in his recent win over Denis Grachev.

Bika get past the 34-year-old Sjekloca on Saturday night at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Bika-Sjekloca will be taking place as the co-main event on the Adrien Broner vs. Gavin Rees card, and it could very well overshadow that fight if it’s as competitive as many boxing fans think it’ll be.

Sjekloca is a seven year pro with precious little experience against quality opposition. His biggest fights have come against Hadlillah Mohoumadi and Khoren Gevor, and he barely beat both of those guys. That’s kind of troubling because those are fighters that Bika would almost surely take apart piece by piece.

Bika wouldn’t struggle in beating them, and it’s hard to imagine them getting out of a fight with Bika without getting knocked out. Sjekloca doesn’t have much power, and he has to win his fights by jabbing from the outside and throwing simple left-right combinations. Sjekloca is not going to be able to keep Bika on the outside. It takes a lot of power and a good mover to keep Bika away, and Sjekloca doesn’t have the tools to keep him trapped outside.

Bika, 33, hasn’t had a fight where he looked bad since his loss to Bute in 2007. Bika lost to Jean-Paul Mendy by a 1st round disqualification in July 2010 after knocking him down in the 1st and hitting him while he was on the ground, which resulted in Bika being disqualified.

In his fight after that, Bika lost to WBA Super World super middleweight champion Andre Ward by a 12 round unanimous decision in November 2010, in what Ward describes as easily the toughest fight of his career. Ward was frustrated with Bika’s power and excellent inside fighting skills, and he was forced to take the fight to the outside in order to cement the victory.

In Bika’s last two fights, he dominated Alfredo Contreras and Dyah Davis in stopping both of them.



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