By Jim Dower: Cruiserweight contender Denis Lebedev (23-1, 17 KO’s) faces what could be the hardest puncher of his career against Shawn Cox (16-1, 15 KO’s) on Wednesday night at the Crocus City Hall, in Myakinno, Russia. Lebedev, 32, has been in with some big punchers during his career against the likes of Marco Huck, Enzo Maccarinelli and Alexander Alekseev. However, Cox might be the hardest puncher of the bunch at least with his left hand.

Cox completely destroyed Wayne Braithwaite by a 1st round knockout in his last fight last February, knocking him down three times in the fight with big left hands until the fight was finally stopped. Cox has been knocking everybody out between the 1st and 4th rounds. He’s like the Corrie Sanders of the cruiserweight division. He’s beatable if you can survive long enough to land anything but it’s tough just trying to get out of the first few rounds against this guy because he hits so hard.

Cox, 6’1″, has the size advantage over the 5’11” Lebedev and that could be a problem for the Russian fighter because he’s usually around the same size if not bigger than his opponents. Cox doesn’t do a lot of jabbing but he’s murderous with his looping power shots. If he lands one of those big shots on the button, Lebedev will be getting scooped up off the floor in this fight.

Lebedev can’t afford to get hit by Cox and he can’t afford to leave him in there too long for him to get chances to land his shots. The longer Lebedev leaves Cox in there the more likely he’s going to run into a big shot that takes him out. This is the perfect fight if you like to see two powerful sluggers going at it trying to KO each other with big punch. No way will this fight make it the full 12 rounds. Someone is getting knocked out in this fight and my guess is it’ll likely be Cox because Lebedev is the better defensive fighter and he just needs to avoid enough of Cox’s shots to get one big punch and that’ll probably finish Cox for the fight.