Odlanier Solis vs. Yakup Saglam this Saturday, July 27th in Germany

By Boxing News - 07/25/2013 - Comments

solis4455333By Allan Fox: 33-year-old former heavyweight title challenger Odlanier Solis (19-1, 12 KO’s) will be fighting this Saturday night in a scheduled 12 round bout against Yakup Saglam (29-2, 26 KO’s) at the Cuxhaven, Niedersachsen, Germany.

Solis, a former 2004 Olympic gold medalist, will be defending his IBF Inter-Continental heavyweight title. There’s a possibility that Solis, #13 WBC, could face #1 IBF Kubrat Pulev in an IBF eliminator bout next if Solis can get past the 36-year-old Saglam on Saturday, according to Fightnews.

For Solis, this is his third fight since coming off of multiple knee surgeries to repair his injured right knee that he hurt in his 1st round stoppage loss to WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in March of 2011.

Since coming back from knee surgery, Solis has beaten Konstantin Airich and Leif Larsen by 12 round unanimous decisions. Solis barely beat the hard hitting Larsen last March and he took a lot of punishment in that fight in the process of pounding out a 12 round decision.

Solis will have to look a lot better than that if he wants to beat a fighter like Pulev, if that fight even happens. Pulev has a number of options besides just Solis to become the mandatory for IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko.

Solis has had weight problems since turning pro in 2007. He’s constantly been over 250 lbs. for his fights and he’s been as high as 270 on a short 6’1” frame. Solis weighed 200 lbs when fighting in the amateurs, and it’s hard to understand how he put all that weight on by the time he turned pro.

Ideally, Solis would be better off fighting in the low 230s, but that seems unlikely to happen at this point in his career. Solis seems to be stuck with being an overweight heavyweight. It’s possible that Solis will continue to have knee problems in the future due to the massive amount of weight he’s carrying around on his frame. He was built to be a 200 pounder and he’s carrying around an extra 50-70 pounds of bulk on that frame. It’s a wonder he can even fight at all with all the useless fat he’s carrying around.



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