By Jim Dower: on July 23rd, World Boxing Association light heavyweight champion Beibut Shumenov (9-1, 6 KO’s) will be defending his WBA title against his number #2 challenger unbeaten hard-hitting Ukrainian Vyacheslav Uzelkov (22-0, 14 KO’s) at the Tachi Palace Hotel & Casino, in Lemoore, California. This fight figures to be a really tough one for the 26-year-old Shumenov, as he hasn’t looked impressive at all in his two recent fights against Gabriel Campillo. Shumenov lost the first one by a 12 round majority decision in August 2009.

However, he complained long and hard about the loss, thinking he was ripped off. I saw the fight and felt that Campillo had done more than enough to deserve getting the win. But they ended up having a rematch anyway, and this time Shumenov won, beating Campillo by a questionable 12 round split decision in January 2010. I saw this fight too and felt that Campillo won it by at least four rounds. It was close in that Shumenov was able to win some rounds, but the vast majority of the rounds I thought should have gone to Campillo.

In taking on Uzelkov, Shumenov is going to be facing a guy that completely destroyed their common opponent Campillo in a 6th round TKO in September 2007. Uzelkov was far too strong for Campillo, and basically walked right through him with big power shots. Campillo’s light punches had no effect in slowing down Uzelkov, who wasn’t bothered or slowed down in the least by them. Uzelkov came after Campillo each time with knockout intentions, blasting him around the ring like he was a feather. It wasn’t a close fight.

In looking at how easily Uzelkov was able to beat Campillo, a fighter that Shumenov went life and death with twice, I have no other opinion than to think that Shumenov is going to be in over his head in this fight and will probably take a beating. Shemenov is a fighter that has had a lot of hype about him because of his early wins over fighters like Montell Griffin, Donnell Wiggins and Byron Mitchell. However, in taking on Campillo, I think it’s fair to say that we saw where Shumenov’s truel talent level is at.

Shumenov fights in a very rigid, robotic way. Shumenov seems to lack any kind of flexibility and doesn’t punch hard. He moves around a lot in the early parts of his fights before tiring out. He then becomes more stationary, sluggish and weak. He throws a lot of punches, but he misses a great deal of the time and just has no power to speak of. I think Uzelkov should win this fight without any problems as long as he can win a decision. It’s nice that the fight is taking place in the United States instead of Shumenov’s home country of Kazakhstan. The U.S. is a nice neutral territory for this fight so there won’t be any complaints afterwards if the decision ends up looking weird. I see Uzelkov winning this fight and likely knocking Shumenov out. If he doesn’t knock him out, then I at least think he’s going to win a lopsided decision. Uzelkov is too strong for Shumenov and will be problems for him from the get go.