By Tim Royner: Former heavyweight world title challenger Carlos Takam and Dereck Chisora are reportedly in negotiations for a fight in May.
Christian Cherchi, the promoter for the recently beaten Takam (35-4-1, 27 KOs), is in negotiations with the promoter for Chisora (27-8, 19 KOs), Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport, to put together a fight between them for May.
David Haye was recently trying to setup a fight between his heavyweight Joe Joyce and Chisora for the undercard of his rematch with Tony Bellew on May 5th, but it doesn’t appear that there was every much of any interest on Chisora and Hearn’s part in that fight.
Takam, 37, is coming off of a 10th round knockout loss to IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua on October 28 last year at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. The Joshua-Takam fight was arguably stopped prematurely in the 10th round by referee Phil Edwards after Joshua landed some hard shots that hurt Takam. He was still trying to fight back at the time Edwards stopped the contest.
“He [Takam] likes the deal. Now it’s only speaking about the money and see if everybody is on board,” Cherchi said to skysports.com. “If Chisora wants the fight, I don’t think he will have a problem doing the fight.”
Cherchi hopes to have the Takam vs. Chisora fight signed by the end of March. It would be an important bout for both. #14 WBC Chisora, 34, needs a big win to get pushed up in the rankings for him to have a better chance of getting a big money fight against Joshua. Takam is ranked #7 IBF and #12 WBC. If Chisora can beat Takam, it’ll improve his rankings and possibly give Hearn a reason to start thinking of using him as one of Joshua’s title challengers in the near future.
Chisora has been struggling as of late with losses to Agit Kabayel, Dillian Whyte and Kubrat Pulev. The defeats to Whyte and Pulev were excusable ones for Chisora, but not the one against the 25-year-old Kabayel. That loss was obviously a hard to digest defeat for Chisora, because he looked so bad from start to finish. Chisora fought in a lazy manner, as if he was in no hurry to increase the slow pace that he was fighting at. Kabayel looked unremarkable as well, but he was able to use movement and speedy combinations to win a close 12 round majority decision by the scores 115-114, 115-113 and 114-114. If Chisora had showed just a little bit more urgency in the fight, he would have beaten Kabayel. For some reason, Chisora fought in a lazy manner and he let a very beatable fighter defeat him on the night.
The 6’1 ½” Takam is a bad match-up for Chisora. This could end badly for Chisora. It’s not the same size mismatch for Chisora as it would be if he fought the 6’6” Joe Joyce, but it’s still a very tough fight for him. Takam is fighting at a level with his career. In contrast, Chisora is looking increasingly more like a shot fighter with every fight he takes nowadays. This is a fight that would have been a good one for Chisora to have taken 6 to 8 years ago when he was still in top form, but not now. Chisora has lost something from his game. Whether he can get it back by showing more urgency in his fights is unknown. The grueling Dillian Whyte fight in December 2016 might have taken something out of Chisora, because he’s not looked the same since.
In other boxing news, Takam arrived in the UK on Monday to begin working with Joshua as one of his sparring partners to help get him ready for his March 31st unification fight against WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker (24-0, 18 KOs) at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. Takam will also be negotiating the Chisora fight with Hearn while he’s in the UK.