By Dan Ambrose: Former heavyweight title challenger Odlanier Solis (17-1, 12 KO’s) will be making his comeback from major knee surgery on October 14th against German Varol Vekiloglu (18-2-1, 10 KO’s) in a scheduled 12 round bout for the vacant International Boxing Federation Inter-Continental heavyweight title at a still to be determined venue in Germany.

Solis, 31, tore up his right knee after it collapsed out from under him in in the 1st round in his last fight in March of this year against WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko. Solis was unable to get up and the fight was ruled a 1st round knockout win for Vitali. Solis would later have three major surgeries to repair the torn cartilage in his knee, and it must be back to normal because he’s facing a fairly good opponent for his first fight back.

Solis needs to chock up some quick wins, as he’s slipped from the top tier of the heavyweight rankings. However, he should find himself back near the top in no time, because the division is barren of talented fighter right now. Solis needs to get his weight down if he wants to prevent any future knee problems. Thus far he’s been resistant to trimming off the massive amount of flab that he’s put on since before he turned pro. In 2004, a trim and in shape Solis won a gold medal for Cuba in the Olympics.

Since then, Solis has left Cuba and put on over 50 pounds of mostly fat. He still has been able to succeed because of his excellent skills and fast hands, but finally the extra weight ended up hurting him in his bout against Vitali. Solis came into that fight at a relatively light weight for him at only 246, but it still looked like he was carrying around 40 pounds of extra fat on his frame. At this point, it’s probably realistic that Solis will ever be able to take the weight off. If anything, he’ll like get even bigger as the years go by. It’s too bad because he could have been a very good heavyweight if he were able to fight around 210 to 215.