Evgeny Gradovich vs. Lee Selby in the works for March

By Boxing News - 01/02/2015 - Comments

selby45By Scott Gilfoid: IBF featherweight champion Evgeny Gradovich (19-0-1, 9 KOs) will be defending his IBF title in March against #1 IBF Lee Selby (20-1, 8 KOs), according to Gradovich’s manager Eris Klimas in speaking with esnewsreporting.com.

The fight could take place in Russia, says Gradovich. This obviously means there won’t be an immediate rematch for Gradovich against Jayson Velez, who Gradovich fought to a 12 round draw last November. Gradovich appeared to beat a tired and worn out Velez by at least four rounds, yet the judges scored the fight a 12 round draw. Needless to say, it was a really controversial decision and yet another black eye for boxing.

Klimas is waiting for a letter from the International Boxing Federation to have the fight ordered, but he expects to receive the letter soon. For the fight to take place in Russia, it’ll likely need to come down to the purse bids, because Selby’s promoter Eddie Hearn would likely not agree to the fight taking place in Russia. If it goes to a purse bid, then Hearn would have a good chance of winning the bid and then having the fight take place in the UK where Gradovich would have a tougher time.

Selby is coming off of a mismatch against a shorter fighter named Joel Brunker in October of last year. Selby, who isn’t much of a puncher, got a rare knockout when he stopped the over-matched Brunker in the 9th. Interestingly enough, Hearn had been talking up Brunker big time like he was a great fighter, but he looked awful, truly awful.

It was another case of easy match-making for Selby, who really hasn’t faced a true quality fighter as of yet during his career. In his previous fight, Selby defeated Romulo Koasicha by a 12 round decision last May.

There are a lot of much better contenders that Selby could have been matched up against during his career, and you have to wonder why Hearn never put Selby in with any of them. I’m talking about guys like Gary Russell Jr, Abner Mares, Jayson Velez, Simpiwe Vetyeka, Hisashi Amagasa and Marvin Sonsona. Those guys would be a handful for Selby, and I could see him losing to most of them.

Gradovich is going to be a major problem for Selby because the British fighter doesn’t have much power to keep the Russian fighter off of him. To be sure, Selby can run around the ring looking to pot shot, but that won’t work against Gradovich because he cuts off the ring well and crowds his opponents.



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