By Eric Thomas: 44-year-old former IBF/WBA/WBC light heavyweight champion Antonio Tarver (29-20 KO’s) will be returning to the ring next month to face 38-year-old heavyweight journeyman Mike Sheppard (21-15-1, 9 KO’s) in a scheduled 10 round bout at the BB&t Center, Sunrise, Florida, USA.
Tarver has been out of action since his 12 round no decision against Lateef Kayode last year in June. Oddly enough, Kayode hasn’t fought since then either. Tarver has the perfect opponent for him to get an easy victory over as long as he comes into the fight in decent shape and ready to let his hands go.
Sheppard has lost 3 out of his last 4 fights with all 3 of the losses coming from knockouts to Ruslan Chagaev, Brian Minto and Vinny Maddalone. Those are probably a longer stronger than Tarver, but he should still be able to take Sheppard out of there fairly early if he steps on the gas.
At Tarver’s advanced age, it’s hard to figure out what he’s hoping to accomplish. If his goal is to get one of the Klitschko brothers to fight him, then he’s going to be waiting an awful long time because that’s not going to happen unless he can work his way into a mandatory position. Tarver could do that over 1-2 years if he fights frequently and picks off a couple of top contenders. Will he do that? It’s doubtful. It’s more likely Tarver will fight every 4-6 months at best, and at that kind of pace he’s not going to get pushed up the rankings quickly.
WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko could be retiring by 2014, so there’s a belt that Tarver could go after. If he gets ranked by that sanctioning body, he could get a title shot just based on his name without even being ranked high if one of the contenders like Bermane Stiverne or Chris Arreola are able to pick up the vacant WBC title once Vitali retires or is stripped by the WBC. However, it’s still not likely that Tarver will get a title shot unless he beats 1 to 2 big names, and stays busy.
Comments are closed.