By Allan Fox: WBA World cruiserweight champion Denis Lebedev (25-1, 19 KO’s) will be making his second defense of his World Boxing Association belt against the soon to be 40-year-old WBA Champion in Recess Guillermo Jones (38-3-2, 30 KO’s) on May 17th at the Crocus City Hall, Myakinino, Russia.
Jones, 6’4”, will be turning 41-years-old old May 5th, so by the time he steps inside the ring he’ll be one of the other challengers that you’re going to see at cruiserweight. Jones held the WBA title 2008 to 2012, defending a total of twice in the four years that he had it.
How the WBA allowed Jones to do this without stripping him of the belt is the big question. Obviously, Jones is getting a title shot know by virtue of the “Champion in Recess” tag the WBA gave to him, but did they even bother doing this when the guy had only defended the belt twice in four years?
Can you imagine what it must be like for all the top 15 contenders to have sat around for the past four years while Jones was the champion, and he was rarely defending it. If this happened in the NFL or Major League Baseball, that team would have lost all their games by forfeit, but in boxing it’s okay I guess.
Jones, who isn’t considered a power puncher and never has, said to ESPN “I tell the Russian fans who are ringside to be careful because there will be blood.”
Jones has a lot of KO’s on his resume, but those came against a lot of weak opposition that shouldn’t have been in the ring with him in the first place.
Lebedev, 33, has faced two consecutive crude sluggers in Shawn Cox and Santander Silgado, and he’s knocked both of them out early.
Lebedev’s only loss of his career was against WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck three years ago in a fight in which Lebedev appeared to win 9 rounds to 3. However, the fight was in Germany, and the German based Huck got the benefit of the doubt in getting a decision.
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