By Jim Dower: Former light heavyweight champion Antonio Tarver (27-6, 19 KO’s) will be fighting for the first time at heavyweight against the hard hitting 24-year-old Nagy Aguilera (16-4, 11 KO’s) on October 15th on Showtime.

Tarver, 41, an boxing analyst for Showtime, will get to have his fight dissected by his crew in a prime television spot. It’s hard to say whether Tarver is worth the visibility at this point in his career because he’s lost his last two fights, hasn’t fought in over a year and has never fought at heavyweight before.

With all the boxers available to be shown on Showtime, it’s strange that Tarver should be picked. Tarver has a beatable opponent for this fight. Aguilera was stopped in the 2nd round by Samuel Peter in March and in his last fight, Aguilera was easily beaten by Maurice Harrison by a 12 round decision.

Tarver hopes to rejuvenate his sagging boxing career at heavyweight. The better money is obviously one of the prime reasons why Tarver chose to skip the cruiserweight division altogether. But it’s difficult to see Tarver succeeding unless he follows the same path at Tomasz Adamek and chooses B quality fighters exclusively.

Perhaps Tarver can pick up a high ranking in the heavyweight division after beating a few scrubs and then get a big money shot against one of the Klitschko brothers or David Haye.

One would hope that Tarver faces a live body before he’s given a title shot, because it’s not interesting for boxing fans to see fighters work their way up the rankings by fighting lesser fighters and then get destroyed when they get a title shot.

But I don’t expect Tarver to face anyone of quality before he gets a shot against one of the champions. I hope I’m wrong, but I see Tarver doing what Admek’s been doing by facing old guys or fat heavyweights.