Weights: Chudinov 167, Buglioni 167

By Boxing News - 09/25/2015 - Comments

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By Jim Dower: WBA “regular” super middleweight champion Fedor Chudinov (13-0, 10 KOs) successfully weighed in on Friday in coming in at 167 pounds for his title defense against #4 WBA challenger Frank Buglioni (17-1-1, 13 KOs) for their fight on Saturday night at the Wembley Arena in London, England. Buglioni also weighed in at 167lbs.

Chudinov, 28, needs to get past Buglioni in order for him to get a rematch with former middleweight title holder Felix Sturm later in the year. Chudinov defeated Sturm by a 12 round split decision last May to win the WBA World super middleweight title in Germany.

Chudinov’s promoter wants to match him up against WBA interim 168lb champion Vincent Feigenbutz, but he’ll now have to defeat both Buglioni and Sturm first to get to the fight against the 20-year-old Feigenbutz.

Buglioni defeated Fernando Castaneda by a 5th round knockout win in his last fight in July to win the vacant WBA International super middleweight title. Buglioni, 26, has had a checkered past with him fighting to a controversial 10 round draw against Lee Markham earlier this year in May, and getting stopped in the 6th round in April 2014 by Sergey Khomitsky.

A lot of boxing fans thought Buglioni lost the fight to Markham. Buglioni’s poor showings in those two fights has people wondering why he was selected by Chudinov for this fight rather than another opponent more deserving of a title shot.

Buglioni was likely selected specifically because of all the flaws in his game. If he were fighting at a high level, Chudinov would have likely selected someone else that was more beatable.

This is Buglioni’s big chance to try and win a world title and hold the title down for a little while. He doesn’t have the type of talent that would enable him to hold onto a title for any length of time, but if he can get in a couple of voluntary defenses before he’s forced to fight Feigenbutz, he could make some nice money before he eventually loses the belt. It’s difficult to imagine Buglioni ever getting another world title shot if he loses to Chudinov on Saturday.

Former heavyweight world title challenger Dereck Chisora (21-5, 14 KOs) will be facing 34-year-old Brazilian journeyman Marcelo Luiz Nascimento (18-10, 16 KOs) in a scheduled 10 round fight on the undercard of the Buglioni vs. Chudinov fight. This will be Chisora’s second fight since his 10th round stoppage loss to Tyson Fury last November.

Chisora, 31, is trying to bring his career back from the defeat to Fury and get back into world title contention. Chisora is still young enough to get in line for another world title shot, but it’s going to require for him to win a lot of fights and possibly knock off some of the big names in the division before he can do that.

Chisora won’t likely be given a world title shot by Wladimir Klitschko, Ruslan Chagaev or Deontay Wilder unless he becomes the mandatory challenger.
In Chisora’s last fight, he defeated Beqa Lobjanidze by a 1st round knockout.



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