By Scott Gilfoid: The undercard fights on tonight’s Carl Froch vs. Mikkel Kessler card in London could possibly steal the show with unbeaten super middleweight contender George Groves (18-0, 14 KO’s) facing puncher Noe Gonzalez (30-2, 22 KO’s), and WBC Silver light heavyweight champion Tony Bellew (19-1-1, 12 KO’s) facing the highly skilled #3 WBC, Isaac Chilemba (20-1-2, 9 KO’s) in a rematch at the O2 Arena.
The Groves-Gonzalez fight looks to be another mismatch put together by Groves’ promoter Eddie Hearn, but there’d a slight possibility the fight could be interesting if Groves goes right after Gonzalez and runs into something big. I mean, I kind of doubt it, but there’s a lottery type chance that Gonzalez can drop Groves a few times and make the fight competitive.
I’d rather not see mismatches like this as the co-feature, but that’s on Hearn. He’s the one that came up with this brilliant idea to do the co-feature on the cheap, so if it hurts pay per view sales, it’s on him.
If I was promoting the fight I’d look for someone a little more talented to face Groves than Gonzalez because this is the same guy that was stroked out in two rounds by Adonis Stevenson last year.
Of course, I’m looking at it from a fan’s perspective as far as wanting the fans to see a good fight. Maybe if I was a promoter I’d be wanting to match a fighter like Groves as weak as I can in order to make him look better than he is and to keep him from getting beat. In that case, Gonzalez is perfect for Groves tonight.
Prediction: Groves 2nd round TKO
The much, much better fight in my view is the match between Bellew and Chilemba. This is actually a competitive fight because it’s hard to say what will happen in this fight. The two guys fought to a 12 round draw last March with many fans seeing Chilemba as having done enough to deserve the win. Bellew swears up and down that he deserved the victory and that he should have had his hand raised, but all you have to do is look at how passive Bellew was in the last seven rounds of the fight to know that there’s no way he should have won.
Chilemba can win this fight if he fights aggressively for the entire 12 rounds. He can’t fight passively like he did in the first five rounds and expect to get a decision just because he appears to have won the last seven rounds. You have to remember this fight is in the UK, and that means that if it’s close, it’s probably going to go to Bellew.
Chilemba has to go after Bellew and put him on his heels and keep him there for the full 12 rounds if he wants to win. Bellew says he’s going to go all out and fight hard for the full 12 rounds this time instead of just five rounds. It’ll be interesting to see if that’s the case. I don’t see it happening. Bellew tends to back off when met with resistance and a strong punch. I see the same thing happening tonight.
Prediction: Chilemba by 12 round unanimous decision
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