Evgeny Gradovich vs. Lee Selby this Saturday in London, UK

By Boxing News - 05/25/2015 - Comments

selby45By Scott Gilfoid: #1 IBF challenger Lee Selby (20-1, 8 KOs) will be attempting to snatch the title from unbeaten IBF featherweight champion Evgeny Gradovich (19-0-1, 9 KOs) at the O2 Arena in London, UK.

Selby, 28, will have the hometown advantage over the 28-year-old Russian Gradovich, but I’m afraid that might not be enough for Selby. In the past, Selby, 5’8 ½”, has generally been the taller fighter in his bouts by a considerable margin.

Selby’s tall for a featherweight, and he’s used his height advantage to defeat a mix of B and C level fighters. There hasn’t been anyone good that Selby has faced, and that makes it impossible to tell whether he’s got the goods to mix it up with the best in the division. But for this fight, Selby and the 5’8” Gradovich are going to be roughly the same height with pretty the same reach.

Without any kind of size advantage that he’s accustomed to, Selby is going to have to get accustomed to getting nailed with shots while he’s on the outside. In other words, there won’t be a safe spot for refuge for Selby in this fight.

This is a really big step up for Selby from the guys he’s been facing. In his last four fights, Selby has beaten Joel Brunker, Romulo Koasicha, Rendall Monroe, and Ryan Walsh. The difference between these guys and the best featherweights in the division is huge to the extreme. Selby’s promoter Eddie Hearn hasn’t done him any favors by keeping him on a soft diet this long because he has no frame of reference to get him ready for what he’ll be facing on Saturday night against the hard hitting Gradovich.

“I am not going to let him take the title from me,” Gradovich said via Sportinglife.com. “I worked too hard to get it and even harder to keep it. I love being the World champion, it’s the best feeling in the world and I want to keep that feeling going.”

Gradovich is a superb pressure fighter that thrives on facing runners like Selby. Gradovich, like Gennady Golovkin, is excellent at cutting off the ring on his opponents to force them to fight. He’s constantly coming forward and very good at trapping his opponents against the ropes where he pounds them with power shots.

I suspect we’re going to see a massive amount of holding by Selby on Saturday. He’s likely going to be clinching Gradovich 10-15 times per round, possibly even more than that in order to try and shut down his constant pressure.

Unfortunately, I don’t see that working for Selby because Gradovich is going to nail Selby with shot even while being held. Gradovich isn’t one of those fighters that just gives up passively when he’s being held by someone 24/7. He continues to fight and work to get out of the clinch.

Selby is going to have to actually fight on Saturday rather than run and land pot shots, because is going to force him to brawl. Selby isn’t a great brawler, and this could wind up going badly for him if he can’t handle standing in the pocket against Gradovich.

I suspect we’ll see Gradovich trap Selby against the ropes and nail him with a big shot at some point to get a stoppage. Selby is just not ready for a fighter of this class.

Gradovich was robbed in his last fight against guy that is arguably much better than Selby in Jayson Velez last November. The scoring for that fight was so, so sad. I felt sorry for Gradovich because he was clearly robbed of a win by the poor scoring. One guy had it scored 117-111 for Gradovich, which I agreed with, but the other two had it 114-114 and 115-113 for Velez. It made no sense at all. Velez gets dominated and two judges score it like that.



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