By Eric Thomas: Unbeaten Kubrat Pulev (18-0, 9 KO’s) will be playing it safe this Saturday night in a scheduled defense of his IBF International heavyweight title against replacement opponent Joey Abell (29-6, 28 KO’s) Jahnsportforum, Neubrandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.
Pulev, 32, was supposed to be fighting journeyman Sherman Williams but he suffered an injury while training and had to be replaced by Abell. There’s really not much difference between Williams and Abell. Pulev’s handlers didn’t pick a really good opponent for him because they don’t risk him getting beaten and losing out on his payday fight against IBF heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko.
The 6’4″ Abell has good punching power, but he’s not beaten anyone that you could call good during this 8-year pro career. When Abell has faced better opposition in fights against Chris Arreola and Fres Oquendo, he’s been stopped. That’ll likely be the case this Saturday night, although he has a fairly good chance of making it the distance in this fight because Pulev can’t punch like Arreola and Oquendo.
Pulev said via ESPN “It doesn’t matter who I have to beat. My goal is clear: a fight against Wladimir Klitschko to take all his belts.”
Pulev’s chances of beating Wladimir are about as good as some of the other weak opponents he’s faced like Mariusz Wach and Francesco Pianeta. Pulev is slightly above those guys, but not much. He’s still far below Wladimir to the point where he has no chance at all in this fight short of Wladimir suffering an injury to a limb. Pulev is basically a jabber in the Kevin Johnson mold, but without Johnson’s good left hook. Pulev seems to have watched a lot of Wladimir’s fights because he tends to clinch a lot when he opponents get near enough to hit him. That’s work to Wladimir’s benefit if Pulev chooses to grab him, because that’ll take some of the heat of Wladimir from criticism he took for clinching over 10 times per round in his last title defense against WBA heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin.
Abell is coming off of a 1st round stoppage win over Maurenzo Smith in his last fight in July of this year. Before that, Abell was stopped in the 9th round by Oquendo last year in May.
Pulev defeated 42-year-old Tony Thompson by a 12 round unanimous decision last August. Pulev didn’t look good until Thompson ran out of gas after the fourth round. Before that, Pulev looked kind of shaky like he in a fight that he going to have a hard time with. But luckily for him, Thompson was out of shape and not the same fighter that gave Wladimir problems in 2008.
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