By Tim Fletcher: Undefeated IBF/IBO light welterweight champion Cesar Rene Cuenca (48-0, 2 KOs) will look to equal Floyd Mayweather Jr’s 49-0 mark next month when he defends his title against unbeaten 35-year-old Russian #14 IBF Eduard Troyanovsky (22-0, 19 KOs) on the undercard of the Alexander Povetkin vs. Mariusz Wach card on November 4th at the Basket-Hall Arena, in Kazan, Russia.

Mayweather, 38, recently won his 49th victory without a defeat in beating Andre Berto by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision on September 12th to tie the late Rocky Marciano’s 49-0 record he set in 1956. The record has since been broken by Julio Cesar Chavez and Ricardo Lopez.

Mayweather has no desire of breaking the record by going for his 50th win. Cuenca, 34, will no doubt be looking to break the record and continuing to win in the future.

Cuenca recently beat Ik Yang by a 12 round unanimous decision last July to capture the vacant IBF light welterweight title in a one-sided fight on Macao, China.

Despite having 48 wins on his resume, Cuena only has two knockouts. He’s a pure boxer who likes to hit and move around the ring to avoid shots in return. He hasn’t scored a knockout in two years since stopping Diego Jesus Ponce by a 5th round knockout.

Most of Cuenca’s wins have come against his fellow Argentinians in Argentina. For that reason, it’s difficult to know how good he is. Cuenca looked good in beating Yang last July, but that wasn’t a very good opponent. Yang looked powerful but very crude in terms of his boxing skills. Beating him wasn’t a big deal at all.

It’s difficult to picture Cuenca keeping his unbeaten record for too much longer now that he’s the IBF 140lb champion. He’ll likely defeat Troyanovsky on November 4th, but that’s only because he has a more padded record than he does. But once Cuenca is forced to try and beat the better fighters like former IBF light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson and Felix Diaz, I suspect he’ll lose for the first time.

The November 4th fight will be the first of two voluntary defenses for Cuenca. After those two fights are exhausted, Cuenca will need to defend against his mandatory challenger. There currently isn’t a No.1 or No.2 rated contender for the IBF. No.3 is Antonio Orozco and No.4 is Lamont Peterson. Those guys will be very tough for Cuenca to beat.

In his last three fights, Cuenca has beaten Yang, Albert Mensah and Patricio Antonio Pedrero.