By William Mackay: Fringe light heavyweight contender Isaac Chilemba (18-1-1, 9 KO’s) battles the hard hitting 31-year-old Edison Miranda (35-6, 30 KO’s) on Friday Night Fights in a scheduled 10 round bout at the Texas Station Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Chilemba, 24, ranked #6 WBC, #12 IBF, #13 WBA, #14 WBO, needs a win over the 31-year-old Miranda to prove that he’s for real and a serious threat to the better fighters in the division. However, Chilemba, who is traveling all the way from Johannesburg, South Africa, will be taking a big step up in class in this fight.

Chilemba hasn’t faced too many punchers and struggled in the two fights where he was put in with guys with power and skills in fights against Maxim Vlasov and Thomas Oosthuizen in 2010 and 2011, earning a 12 round draw in the Oosthuizen fight and winning a close 10 round decision against the Russian Vlasov last year in February after getting knocked down twice by right hands from Vlasov.

Miranda is a lot bigger puncher than either of those guys and he’s going to be really putting it on Chilemba in this fight. Miranda does well against guys without a lot of power, and Chilemba is no puncher. He’s more of a fighter that beats guys on high workrate alone but it’s not a good sign that he’s troubled by punchers because Miranda can still punch.

That’s one thing that Miranda has going for him right now, as he’s lost three out of his last five fights. In fairness to Miranda, you can really only count two of the losses – against Lucian Bute and Andre Ward – because Miranda’s 5th round disqualification defeat against Yordanis Despaigne should have never happened. Miranda landed a few shots on the beltline and the referee Vic Drakulich hastily disqualified Miranda.

I’ve never seen a referee do something this dramatic before off of nothing. It was hard to understand what was going through Drakulich’s mind when he yanked the plug on Miranda. Less than a week before this fight, Drakulich was the referee for the Zab Judah vs. Amir Khan fight, a fight that ended when Khan held Judah’s head down with his arm and while holding him down, Khan tagged Judah with a right hand that hit right on the beltline, the same place where Miranda’s punches had been landing. Drakulich then counted out Judah and didn’t take a point away or disqualify Khan for holding and hitting.

Miranda looked good in beating a very good Kariz Kariuki by a 5th round TKO in his last fight last December. Kariuki may be an even better fighter than Chilemba, yet Miranda walked through his shots to punish him with right hands and knock him down in the 5th.

I think tomorrow night’s fight comes down to whether Miranda can hurt Chilemba or not. If he can, then he’ll likely stop him. If not, then Chilemba will outwork Miranda and win by a 10 round decision. I don’t see Chilemba as a threat to guys like Chad Dawson, Ismayl Sillakh, Tavoris Cloud, Bernard Hopkins, Beibut Shumenov or Nathan Cleverly. Chilemba, 6’1″, will have a three inch height advantage over the 5’10” Miranda, but this won’t mean much because Miranda is good at getting close to his taller opponents and Chilemba isn’t hard to hit.