By Jim Dower: Cruiserweight contender Denis Lebedev (23-1, 17 KO’s) will be facing the big punching southpaw prospect Shawn Cox (16-1, 15 KO’s) in a fight for the interim WBA World cruiserweight title next Wednesday on April 4th at the Crocus City Hall, in Myakinino, Russia. Cox, 37, still has to be considered a prospect because he’s not ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies.

It’s hard to understand how Cox can be fighting for the interim WBA title when he’s not ranked in the top 15 by anybody. But the sanctioning bodies sometimes are slow in recognizing good fighters and in this case Cox is one of them.

Lebedev, #1 WBA, #2 WBO, has taken a brief vacation from hard fights since losing by a questionable 12 round split decision to WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck in December 2010. Instead of taking on top contenders in the cruiserweight division, Lebedev has had back to back fights against 43-year-olds Roy Jones Jr. and James Toney, beating both of them with ease last year. Now that the fights against old timers are out of the way, Lebedev is ready to get back to some serious business of trying to capture the interim WBA World cruiserweight title.

If Lebedev can get by the big hitting Cox, Lebedev can be on his way to eventually facing the WBA World cruiserweight champion Guillermo Jones in 2012 or 2012. That will be an interesting fight because it would put the hard hitting southpaw Lebedev against the 39-year-old Jones. Lebedev might have to wait a while before he gets that fight, however, because Jones hasn’t exactly been one of the buisier champions, having defended his WBA title zero times in 2009, once in 2010 and once in 2011. Jones won the title in 2008.

Cox is a very dangerous puncher with his left hand in the early rounds. Lebedev will have to be really careful that he doesn’t get hit with any of Cox’s big shots because he loads up with everything he throws. It creates possibilities for Lebedev to land his counter shots, but there’s going to be some risk involved because of Cox’s big power.