By Erik Schmidt: WBO light heavyweight champion Zsolt Erdei (29-0, 17 KOs) will be making his incredible 11th defense of his title on January 10th against Armenian Yuri Barashian (25-4, 17 KOs) in a 12-round bout at
Bordelandhalle, Magdeburg, in Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany. Erdei, 34, from Hungary and now living in Hamburg, Germany, has held onto the WBO light heavyweight belt for four long years, defending it 10 times since winning the title in January 2004 in a 12-round decision over Julio Gonzalez.
Since that time, Erdei has easily defended the title, beating the likes of Hugo Hernan Garay, whom he twice defeated and Thomas Ulrich. In terms of talent, Erdei, a former 1996 and 2000 Olympian for the Hungary amateur team, is probably in the top four in the light heavyweight division, with only Chad Dawson, Bernard Hopkins and Joe Calzaghe perhaps better than him.
I say perhaps, because Erdei has extraordinary talent, easily the hardest jab in the division and boxing skills that few fighters can match. He’s fought largely in obscurity in Germany, where he’s made most of his defenses of his WBO title.
So far, he’s been without a true career-defining fight, with his two fights against the talented Garay coming the closest to a big fight. Unfortunately, due to his lack of punching power and flashy speed, he’s not picked up as many fans as fighters like Hopkins and Calzaghe, yet he probably has the skills to give either of them a tough time if they were to decide on fighting him.
In Erdei’s last fight, a 12-round unanimous decision over the tall, 6’3″, DeAndrey Abron, Erdei pounded out a relatively easy win by the scores of 119-109, 119-109 and 119-109. Abron, though, started off well in the first three rounds, using his huge five inch height advantage over the 5’10” Erdei to keep him contained on the outside, landing long jabs and hard right hands.
In the 4th round, Erdei began to take control over the fight with his hard jab, peppering Abron constantly with hard shots. By the end of the round, Abron was showing dark swellings under both of his eyes. For the remainder of the fight, Erdei jabbed Abron frequently, hitting him with jabs that were similar to power shots, and giving him all kinds of problems.
If there was any criticism of Erdei’s impressive performance, it’s that he took few chances to throw any power shots until the last two rounds of the fight. And because of that, the fight turned into a dull jabbing clinic. Erdei got the win, but made the fight almost painful to watch because of his lack of variety of his punches. However, you can’t blame him for sticking to what was working for him, because, after all, if a fighter is able to beat their opponent with a jab, why take chances with success?
Erdei will be facing Barashian, 29, a powerful southpaw from Armenia, ranked #13 in the WBO, and a dangerous puncher. Barashian, 6’1″, recently lost a 12-round unanimous decision to Garay in July, a fight for the vacant WBA light heavyweight title.
Barashian was out-boxed for most of the fight, not throwing nearly enough punches to remain competitive and looking slow. However, in the 10th round, Barashian finally caught up to Garay and staggered him with a big left hook. Despite hurting him badly, Barashian was slow in taking advantage of the situation and let Garay off the hook.
In the 10th round, Barashian continued landing huge left hands to the head of Garay, snapping his head back in a whiplash motion. But, Garay, to his credit, changed his style in the 11th and 12th, focusing on short, fast punches and ended up outworking Barashian in the final two rounds.
Erdei probably won’t have too many problems against Barashian, as long as he keeps the fight on the outside. If Erdei lets Barashian in close, then anything can happen if Erdei gets nailed by one of Barashian’s big left hooks. However, Erdei will probably fight smart, take few chances and keep the fight to the outside where Barashian won’t be able to do much.