By Scott Gilfoid: #13 IBF fringe contender Dereck Chisora (25-5, 17 KOs) showed up at the newly crowned IBF heavyweight champion Charles Martin’s press conference last Saturday night to call him out for a fight. I wouldn’t say Chisora was begging for a title shot against Martin, but I do think looked bad with the way he was asking for it. Martin’s management told Chisora to have his promoter Kalle Sauerland call them up to discuss a potential fight. Martin, 6’5”, defeated #1 IBF Vyacheslav Glazkov (21-1-1, 13 KOs) by a 3rd round TKO to win the vacant IBF heavyweight title at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
The fight was stopped after Glazkov reportedly tore an ACL in his right knee after slipping on the canvas. He was unable to continue fighting after the injury in the third.
After the fight, Martin was vocal about wanting to fight a unification match against IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury.
However, Fury has a rematch has to take care of against Wladimir Klitschko. Unless Martin wants to wait around for Fury to get through with the Klitschko fight, he’s probably going to need to defend the IBF title before that.
“I want to unify the titles. We didn’t even fight tonight. I want another fighter. I want Tyson Fury,” Martin said.
Fury seems more interested in facing WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder in a unification fight than facing Martin. The money for a fight against Wilder would likely be a lot more for Fury than it would be for a fight against little known Martin.
“To be honest with you, I don’t think you can beat Tyson Fury,” Chisora said to Charles Martin at the post-fight press conference. “I fought him twice and lost twice. He’s too big and he has the longer reach. Great job for your win. I don’t know how you won, but you’re the IBF heavyweight champion of the world. I take my hat off to you. When are you going to defend your title?” Chisora said.
Martin then said “Whatever my team wants is what I’ll do.”
“I’ll speak to your team. Me and you can do it. I am down for fighting. I’ll challenge you anytime you want, bro. Can we do it in Vegas?”
At this point, Martin’s management told Chisora to have his promoter Kalle Sauerland call them to discuss putting a fight together.
Dereck Chisora calls out @stprincecharles at post-fight press conference & challenges him to a fight. #WilderSzpilka pic.twitter.com/xFqa17yTVh
— SHOWTIME SPORTS (@SHOsports) January 17, 2016
If Martin can’t get a unification fight against Fury for his next fight, then the options are pretty slim for him. The IBF has a lot of tough outs for Martin, and Chisora might be one of the easier challengers for him to potentially face.
Here is the top 15 contenders:
1 Vyacheslav Glazkov
2 NOT RATED
3 Martin’s spot
4 Erkan Teper
5 Anthony Joshua
6 Carlos Takam
7 Joseph Parker
8 Steve Cunningham
9 Andy Ruiz
10 Bermane Stiverne
11 Kubrat Pulev
12 Robert Helenius
13 Derek Chisora
14 Alexander Ustinov
15 Andrey Fedosov
Chisora and Andrey Fedosov are arguably the easiest of options in the IBF’s rankings right now. The other guys are tougher opponents and would have a good chance of beating Martin.
I don’t think Chisora has done enough to be given a title shot at this point. I mean, Chisora was stopped in the 10th round by Tyson Fury in their fight in November 2014 in a one-sided fight. Chisora has since beaten the following third tier opponents: Beka Lobjanidze, Marcelo Luiz Nascimento, Peter Erdos, Jakov Gospic and Andras Csomor. I’m sorry, but those are awful opponents for Chisora to use as a springboard for a world title shot against Charles Martin. I could understand Chisora yapping about wanting to fight for a world title if he beaten someone along the lines of Kubrat Pulev, Alexander Ustinov, Anthony Joshua, Dillian Whyte, Robert Helenius, Joseph Parker and Carlos Takam.
Unfortunately, the last time I checked, Chisora hasn’t fought any of those guys lately. Yeah, he did fight Helenius five years ago in 2011, but he lost to him. I don’t care that it was a close and controversial fight. Chisora still lost the fight, period. As such, I really don’t think Chisora has done enough to rate a title shot against Martin unless they’re just giving the title shots away for fighting fodder rather than quality opposition. If this was the NFL, Chisora would be asking to go to the Super Bowl after beating five 0-16 teams after losing to the only decent team of the bunch in his fight against Fury.
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