By Scott Gilfoid: British promoter Frank Warren believes that his fighter heavyweight Dereck Chisora (16-4, 10 KO’s) can ill afford a loss on Saturday night to the highly skilled American Malik Scott (35-0-1, 12 KO’s) at the Wembley Arena, in London, United Kingdom.
Warren said to The Sun “This is about credibility for Dereck, to show he belongs in the elite. He certainly can’t afford to a loss, he has to win, win, win all the way.”
Well, I don’t know that I really see Malik Scott as an elite heavyweight. To me, elite means someone ranked in the top 5 in the heavyweight division, and even then, I think elite for the heavyweight division is really top 2, because pretty much the rest of the heavyweights in the top 15 are badly flawed.
Scott is ranked #13 IBF, #15 WBA. I don’t consider that as being elite. If you’re going by the definition of an elite heavyweight as being anyone ranked in the top 15, I guess Scott is elite then, but I don’t agree with fringe contenders as being elite.
Don’t get me wrong; I think Malik Scott is going to do a number on Chisora and badly school him on Saturday night, but I don’t see a win by Chisora over Scott as translating to Chisora now being elite heavyweight. I mean, it’s pretty obvious what would happen if you turned around and threw Chisora in the ring with David Haye, Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder or Kubrat Pulev in his very next fight.
Chisora would either get his head boxed off or he’d get knocked out. Deontay would likely crush him, as would Haye, and we already saw Fury easily out-box Chisora.
So what I’m saying here is that even if Chisora beats Scott on Saturday night, it doesn’t mean Chisora will be magically transformed into an elite fighter. It’ll just mean that beat a fringe contender who was ranked at or near the bottom of the division. That’s not elite to me. Now if Chisora was able to beat the talented Deontay Wilder, I might reconsider the elite label, but I just don’t see that happening in this lifetime. Deontsay is too power, too talented and too big for Chisora.
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