By Jim Dower: Big unbeaten 6’4 ½” heavyweight contender Kubrat Pulev (14-0, 6 KO’s) will be facing journeyman Michael Sprott (36-17, 17 KO’s) on the undercard of the Robert Stieglitz vs. Henry Weber bout on January 14th at the Baden-Arena in Offenburg, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany.

Pulev, 30, is a former amateur star from Bulgaria who is now fighting out of Germany. Pulev doesn’t have big power but he’s got excellent size, good stamina, a great chin and can hit hard enough to cause problems due to his durability. His handspeed isn’t on the level of the faster heavyweights like David Haye and Wladimir Klitschko, but his size and chin will make him a threat to a lot of the top heavyweights.

Pulev has already beaten notable heavyweights Travis Walker, Derric Rossey, Paolo Vidoz, Matt Skelton, Dominic Guinn, Zack Page, Gbenga Olukun and Danny Batchelder . In Pulev’s last fight, he defeated the 6’4 ½” Walker by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision last October after taking some huge shots from Walker in the first four rounds.

Pulev suffered a cut under his right eye but other than that he had no problems taking Walker’s occasional monstrous shots. The fight arguably should have been halted by the 8th round, as Pulev hurt Walker repeatedly with right hands and was able to land almost at will from that point on. Walker just looked exhausted and hurt in the last four rounds.

With a win over Sprott, Pulev should be among the top heavyweights in the division. He’s got to be put in with better opposition in 2012 because he’s already 30 due to his long amateur career and he can’t afford to be brought up slowly like some of the heavyweight prospects are.

Sprott, 36, has lost his last two fights to big heavyweights Tye Fields and Alexander Dimitrenko. You can consider Sprott a high level journeyman because he’s got some skills and still possesses excellent power in his left hook and right hand. He should get plenty of opportunities to test Pulev’s chin if he can hang around for the full 12 rounds. If there’s a weakness there, Sprott could be the one to find it out. Sprott’s best wins of his career have come against Audley Harrison, Danny Williams and Rene Dettweiler. When he’s put in tough, however, Sprott usually fails. He’s sparred with Wladimir Klitschko, so he shouldn’t be too much out of his element against the slower, weaker Pulev. This guy isn’t on the same level as Wladimir, so Sprott will be able to do some things early on before he starts to wear down.

Unless Sprott can get Pulev out of there he’ll lose by a fairly wide decision if not a knockout. Pulev doesn’t have much of a left hand and tends to throw long badly telegraphed right hands. Sprott should be able to time some of the right hands and either counter them or get out of the way of the shots.