Anthony Joshua vs. Denis Bakhtov on October 11th at O2 Arena, London, UK

By Boxing News - 08/29/2014 - Comments

joshua67By Scott Gilfoid: Heavyweight prospect Anthony Joshua (7-0, 7 KOs) will be fighting 34-year-old Denis Bakhtov (38-9, 25 KOs) on October 11th for the vacant WBC International heavyweight title at the O2 Arena in London, UK.

Joshua has a fight scheduled before that next month against journeyman Konstantin Airich 21-9-2, 17 KOs) on September 13th at the Manchester Arena, in Manchester, UK.

Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn is calling Bakhtov a step up from the Airich fight, but they’re basically pretty much the same fighters in my view. Bakhtov was blown away last year by Manuel Charr in 5 rounds. Bakhtov also has one-sided losses to Andrzej Wawrzyk, Alexander Ustinov, Vyacheslav Glazkov, Juan Carlos Gomez, Saul Montana and Sinan Samil Sam. Bakhtov’s best wins have come against a shot Danny Williams, Steffen Kretschmann, Airich and Juho Haapoja. In Bakhtov’s last fight, he defeated Airich by a lopsided 8 round decision last July.

“I believe that the time is right for Anthony to step up and fight for his first title,” Hearn said to Skysports.com. “He [Joshua] has an important clash with Airich in Manchester in September, and when he comes through that, he will be ready to face Bakhtov in what promises to be a cracking contest.”

I honestly don’t see the point in Joshua fighting Airich. He might as well skip that contest and focus on his slight and I’m talking very, very slight step up from Airch in his match-up with Bakhotov. I don’t rate Charr and Wawrzyk, and they both soundly beat Bakhtov.

Hearn should skip both of these fights and look to put Joshua in against a world ranked contender, because I see the match-making that he’s doing for Joshua as being self-defeating. It’s like putting Joshua on the bench for 2-3 years and expecting him to play at a high level when he finally gets off the bench. It’s not going to happen.

Joshua is going to struggle badly when he gets in the ring with the likes of Deontay Wilder, Chris Arreola and Bermane Stiverne because those guys have talent and can punch. They’re also a heck of a lot better than the guys that Joshua has been facing.



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