By Scott Gilfoid: British heavyweight prospect Anthony Joshua (8-0, 8 KOs) will be in the ring tonight looking to pick up his 9th victory against Russian journeyman Denis Bakhtov (38-9, 25 KOs) at the O2 Arena in London, UK.
Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn has picked out a guy that Joshua will surely beat without him having to worry about taking much punishment. Bakhtov is a guy that was recently knocked out by Manuel Charr in 5 rounds, so that kind of tells you what Joshua is up against tonight. This fight should be over fairly quickly unless Bakhtov can test Joshua’s chin.
Bakhtov has decent punching power, but not huge power. I mean, the knockouts that he’s scored during his career have come against largely C level opposition that he’s been able to knockout with an accumulation of blows in fights that generally went deep. Bakhtov has never been the kind of guy that had one punch power like American heavyweight Deontay Wilder, so Joshua should be okay tonight as long as he doesn’t run out of gas.
“Bakhtov is a lot busier than my last opponent. I look at him the same as I looked at Matt Legg, one of my previous opponents, just with a lot more experience,” Joshua said to Sky Sports. “Legg came out with a lot of hooks and gave it a go. Bakhtov can take punches for fun, and he’ll be looking to get to me. Hopefully, he’ll be the one eating a lot of shots. I have to get the win really. Simple as that.”
Matt Legg is a fighter that Joshua knocked out in one round last May on the undercard of the Carl Froch vs. George Groves 2 card at Wembley Stadium in London, UK. Legg, a limited fighter, came out looking to take Joshua’s head off. He was able to land some monstrous shots to Joshua’s head in the opening seconds. Joshua seemed to lose his senses completely because he just started flurrying with arm punches. Luckily for Joshua, Legg didn’t have the talent to take advantage of Joshua squaring himself up to him because a lot of heavyweights would have.
Also on tonight’s card is Lee Selby fighting Joel Brunker in an IBF featherweight title eliminator. Selby should be able to win this fight to become the mandatory challenger for IBF featherweight champion Evgeny Gradovich. Hearn says the Brunker vs. Selby fight is a 50-50 fight, but no way is this 50-50. This is more like an 80-20 fight in Selby’s favor. Selby has been really carefully matched during his career so it’s impossible to know how he’ll do against a fringe level fighter like #15 WBO Brunker.
Pretty much all of the A-side fighters on this card are going to win. I can’t see anyone losing. Hearn has done his job with the match-making.
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