Chisora faces Pulev tonight

By Boxing News - 05/06/2016 - Comments

chisora77By Scott Gilfoid: After the wild incident that took place at last Friday’s weigh-in, fringe heavyweight contender Dereck Chisora (25-5, 17 KOs) will be looking to put him in position for a world title fight against IBF champion Anthony Joshua in a fight that could take place later this year if Chisora can beat former world title challenger Kubrat Pulev (22-1, 12 KOs) tonight at the Barclaycard Arena in Hamburg, Germany.

It’s a big ask on the part of the 32-year-old Chisora because he doesn’t have the size, talent or the weapons to beat a fighter with the ability and size of the 6’4 ½” Pulev. On paper, Chisora loses to Pulev and loses badly in one-sided clowning.

It’ll be up to Chisora to show that he’s capable of beating a first tier heavyweight for the first time in his career, because he’s always come up short in the past when stepping up to the top level heavyweights.

If this was some obscure third tier heavyweight like the ones that Chisora has been padding his resume on thorough much of his career, then I would feel very confident that he’ll win the fight tonight. Pulev isn’t a third time heavyweight, and Chisora hasn’t shown the ability to beat the better fighters in the division, ever.

At 32, it’s not likely that Chisora will suddenly grow talent all of a sudden and show that he can beat a good fighter like Pulev. It doesn’t work like that in sports unfortunately. If you haven’t shown the ability to beat the better fighters in your mid to late 20s, then it’s not likely that you’re going to be able to start beating them in your early 30s. Fighters go downhill slowly in their 30s. They don’t get better.

“I’ve got my fingers crossed that Dereck can beat Pulev and win that European title and if he does, I believe he is a prime candidate to challenge Anthony Joshua if he can get past Dominic Breazeale,” said Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn to skysports.com.

Hearn is throwing names out there in a shotgun pattern in hopes of getting one of them for Joshua. The guy that Hearn wants most of all for Joshua is IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury. However, Fury says he’s going to be retiring after his next fight against Wladimir Klitschko on July 9, and he says he’s dead serious about that. He’s sick of boxing and wants to walk away from the sport, win or lose.

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If Hearn can’t Fury to take the fight with Joshua, then perhaps Chisora will be a good opponent. If nothing else, you can count on Chisora to bring his over the top press conference behavior to the fight and it should be interesting if for no other reason than that. However, I don’t think Chisora is going to beat Pulev tonight, and neither does Tyson Fury. He sees Chisora losing.

At last Friday’s weigh-in, someone nailed Chisora with a plastic bottle while he was on stage with Pulev. To make a long story short, Chisora tore into the crowd and ended up chasing the person all over the place. It was pretty wild. Chisora definitely upstaged Pulev at the weigh-in in their conferences together.

If their fight was based on which of the two had the most charisma, I think Chisora wins hands down. He’s got acting ability. Never the less, this is an athletic event and I see Pulev as being the better boxer of the two. Chisora is going to be really up against it, and his charisma won’t help him much in the ring. He can’t outtalk Pulev and go into theatrics to win the fight. He’s going to need to win it based on talent, and I see Chisora as being too limited in that area to do much against the Bulgarian fighter.

“I went mad, I’m not going to hold back, I went mad,” said Chisora to skysports.com in explaining why he went chasing after the person that had hit him with a plastic bottle at the weigh-in last Friday. “A simple reason why I don’t want to have my security around me – because they are crazier than me. I decided to trust the hotel security, but they didn’t help and now I’ve learned my lesson. Next time I’ll bring about 25 goons with me.”

It would be best for Chisora to forget about the water bottle incident and focus on the task at hand. There’s a lot more at stake tonight in the Pulev fight than just a simple water bottle. If Chisora loses this fight to Pulev, then he can kiss goodbye a monstrous payday fight against Anthony Joshua on Sky box Office PPV. There’s talk that Joshua’s last opponent Charles Martin got a payday of $6 million for his fight with him. If Chisora could get even half that amount, he would be sitting pretty.

I’m not sure the British tax levels are on income, but I sure Chisora would wind up with at least a good chunk of cash left over after the government takes their slice of the pie from his money for a Joshua fight. The thing is, I think Chisora is going to get dominated by Pulev tonight, and wind up getting eliminated from any chance of a big money fight against Joshua in 2016. I could be wrong, but I think Chisora is going to get royally clowned by Pulev.

Yeah, Pulev looked terrible in getting stopped in five rounds by Wladimir Klitschko in 2014, but that was against a 6’6” fighter with a great jab and huge power in both hands. Chisora is just a little short 6’1” guy with decent power but nothing special. Chisora doesn’t have a great jab like Wladimir, and he rarely uses it anyway.

Chisora is too short to stand on the outside and fight Pulev in a jabbing war because the 6’4” Bulgarian will jab him to pieces if he tries that tactic. The only thing Chisora can do is plod forward and try and walk Pulev down all night long. Chisora might get lucky if he can land one of his looping rabbit shots to the back of Pulev’s head to score a knockout. Those punches are very hard to defend against, and obviously anyone is vulnerable when they get nailed in the back of the head.

The EBU heavyweight title will be up for grabs tonight in the Chisira vs. Pulev fight. I doubt either of these guys care about that trinket too much. The real prize is to win the fight and get a payday fight against Joshua.