By Scott Gilfoid: Former world title challenger Dereck Chisora will be fighting once beaten previous world title challenger Kubrat Pulev for the vacant EBU heavyweight title on May 7 at the Barclaycard Arena, in Hamburg, Germany.
Chisora, 32, sees the 35-year-old Pulev as a flawed fighter that has no clue in how to fight. Further, Chisora thinks Pulev has been coddled by his promoters with him being matched against a lot of soft opposition during his career.
Whatever the case, the two former world title challenger losers will be fighting each other next month, and both are in the same boat. Chisora is no better off than Pulev other than him being in a position to get a payday fight against IBF champion Anthony Joshua if he wins the fight.
“Pulev has always been protected,” Chisora said via Fightnews.com. “His opponents were scrap, his fight record is ridiculous, and against Wladimir Klitschko, he was beaten up very badly. Pulev has no idea how to fight. The best of them was Tony Thompson. I’ve boxed Haye, Fury, and Vitali Klitschko. On May 7, he’ll be surprised. This will not turn out well for him,” said Chisora.
What Chisora fails to say is that he’s lost to Fury, Haye and Vitali Klitschko, as well as Robert Helenius. What good is it to have fought all those guys if you beaten every time. I could understand Chisora bragging about having fought those guys if he’d actually beaten them, but he hasn’t. Chisora didn’t even improve from having fought them. He went from one loss to another. The only guys that Chisora has been able to beat are the lower level 2nd and 3rd tier fighters.
I expect Pulev to have little problems pounding out a decision over Chisora on May 7. I just hope that Chisora doesn’t nail Pulev with any rabbit punches because I’ve seen Chisora throw those punches in more than one fight.
Pulev has the better size, boxing brain and the home advantage with the fight taking place in Germany. Chisora is mainly good against fighters that stand with their backs against the ropes and not using any movement. Pulev is quite good at moving around the ring, fighting tall and using his jab to out-box his shorter opponents. This is the perfect opponent for Pulev to look good against in Chisora. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a knockout in this fight with Pulev winning.
With Chisora’s poor track record in important fights in the past, it’s odd to see him to seem him so overconfident. Chisora has done absolutely nothing since being stopped in the 10th round by Tyson Fury in 2014. Since that loss, Chisora has beaten Beka Lobjanidze, Marcelo Luiz Nascimento, Peter Erdos, Jakov Gospic and Andras Csomor. Sadly, those are the type of opponents that Chisor has filled his resume with in the win column. He’s been beating guys like that his entire career, and failing at the next level fighters when he’s tried to step it up a class.
Pulev was stopped by Wladimir Klitschko in November 2014. Pulev has won his last two fights against old timers George Arias and Maurice Harris.