By Jason Kim: World Boxing Organization (WBO) junior middleweight champion Sergiy Dzinziruk (37-0, 23 KO’s) will reportedly be facing former WBA welterweight champion Luis Collazo (30-4, 15 KO’s) on October 2nd, according to Fightnews.com. Dzinziruk, 34, is looking to get the big fights in the division, and wants to fight Paul Williams. Since that’s not happening and may not be happening anytime soon, Dzinziruk will now be fighting the 29-year-old Collazo. That’s an interesting pick, because Collazo isn’t ranked in the top 15 by the WBO right now, although he is ranked at number #10 by the WBC in the junior middleweight division.

Collazo hasn’t really fought anyone to deserve the #10 ranking, though, other than David Gogichaishvili, who had a record of 9-16 when Collazo fought and beat him by a 6th round TKO last year in June 2009. It looks like Collazo was given the high ranking by the WBC based on what he did in the past at welterweight. At only 5’9”, and not much of a puncher, Collazo will likely be fodder for Dzinziruk. Although Sergiy isn’t a puncher, his boxing skills and his six foot frame will likely be more than enough to easily beat Collazo. This is a fight that Collazo probably should think twice about taking.

He’s better off fighting in the welterweight division where his lack of size and power aren’t as much of a liability as it is against the bigger junior middleweights. Collazo gave WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto all kinds of problems in Collazo’s narrow 12 round unanimous decision loss last year in January. Collazo was hoping that Berto would give him a rematch, but not surprisingly Berto decided not to fight Collazo again.

The smart thing for Collazo to do would have been to continue to focus on fighting welterweights, but it looks like he’s interested in moving up in weight. Perhaps Collazo can get a shot at WBA junior middleweight champion if he keeps winning, but I don’t like his chances of making that happen if he has to go through Dzinziruk before getting that shot. Dzinziruk has excellent boxing skills, as he showed in beating Joel Julio in his 12 round decision win in 2008. In Dzinziruk’s last fight, he stopped Daniel Dawson [no relation to Chad Dawson] by a 10th round TKO last May.