Once promising heavyweight contender Joe Mesi (36-0, 29 KOs) is reportedly looking for his next opponent, supposedly against a tougher fighter than what he’s fought since coming back from his two-year medical suspension in 2006. Mesi, now 34, has been slow to step up his competition since making his comeback, fighting seven consecutive C-level fighters, and hoping that one of the champions might have an interest in fighting him. However, the main problem it seems is that the New York commission refuses to license him to fight, and without that, it effectively eliminates a lot of opponents for Mesi.
It remains doubtful that the New York commission will ever license Mesi, so he may have to deal with fighting the rest of his career on limited terms. As for his title hopes, Mesi is far down in the ranks, having dropped all the way to #16th in the World Boxing Council rankings, which puts him well behind many other heavyweights. For him to move up, however, he’s going to have to take some chances against better opponents, preferably in the top 10. So far, Mesi has been hesitant for some reason to do this, instead wasting time fighting journeyman.
Mesi may be hoping that he can work his way into a title shot on his name along, as he is very popular in the New York area because of his East Coast origins, but it’s unclear that one of the heavyweight champions would want to take on a fighter with a previous history of a brain bleed, especially one that isn’t ranked in the top 10. According to reports, Mesi’s promoter is looking to put him in against someone like Brian Minto, Terry Smith or Donnell Holmes, all B-level fighters. I could understand a move like if it were to have happened six fights ago, when Mesi was first coming off his medical suspension, but not now that he’s fought seven consecutive fights against soft opposition and wasted two valuable years of his career in doing so.
It’s one thing losing two years because of a medical suspension, something you had no control over, but quite another thing to compound the problem by giving up two years by fighting journeyman. For a fighter as young as Mesi, he shouldn’t have had to do that. That’s something an old fighter, someone like George Foreman, would have to do, but not a young fighter. If Mesi does end up fighting Smith, Minto or Holmes, he’ll still be no better off. It’s time he gets off the pot and make some real challenges in his career, because he’s running out of time by putting off what he needs to do.
By the time he finally makes the decision to step it up, it will be too late and the decision will have been taken out of his hands. Even now, it may already be too late with his throwing away the last two years. I don’t see him beating any of the young heavyweights like Alexander Dimitrenko, Alexander Povetkin, Eddie chambers, so he’ll have to focus on steering away from the likes of them if he wants to have any luck.