By Sean McDaniel: 6-foot Dereck Chisora (15-1, 9 KO’s) is a decided underdog for tonight’s fight for the vacant EBU heavyweight title against 6’6 1/2″ giant Robert Helenius (16-0, 11 KO’s) at the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki, Finland. However, Chisora is a live underdog and boxing fans really don’t know what to expect from him. He seems to have been totally dismissed due to his loss to Tyson Fury last July.

Chisora came into that fight 20+ pounds overweight and was unable to really fight hard for sustained periods of time. But when he was throwing punches, he looked good. Chisora has since taken off all the extra weight he gained and is back to his high volume punching, as we saw in his recent win last month. If Chisora can jump on Helenius early and keep a high punch volume and not let Helenius use his reach, we could see a big upset here. Helenius is good at dishing out punishment, but he doesn’t look so great when taking hard shots to the head. He’s had things pretty easy with being matched against fading heavyweights Sergiy Liakhovich, Samuel Peter and Lamon Brewster in the past year.

Beating those guys really doesn’t say all that much, because I think Chisora would beat all three of them as well. Helenius did look good in beating those guys, but only one of them – Liakhovich – really took the fight to him in a meaningful way. Brewster and Peter just looked like they didn’t even want to fight. Tonight, Chisora is going to be coming at Helenius with a hunger, as he really wants to win this fight in order to make a future for himself. He’s not just going to hang around and let Helenius tee off on him. Chisora is going to be pounding him with nonstop power shots, and if the giant Helenius’ conditioning or chin isn’t up to the task, I can see him collapsing by the 8th round.

I honestly don’t think it will be a big upset either because Helenius is someone that has been carefully matched against guys that have made him look a lot better than he really is. I like Chisora in this fight. He’s got the better stamina, he’s the better combination puncher, he has the better head movement and he can punch almost as hard as Helenius. I think Helenius is like a newer version of Gerry Cooney. He’s good when he’s fighting in bouts that don’t go very far against overmatched opposition, but if you put him in with a guy that pressures him and who wants to win, and Helenius will tire out and collapse under the pressure.