By Allan Fox: WBA World light heavyweight champion Beibut Shumenov will be facing 2nd tier super middleweight Enrique Ornelas on June 2nd in the 28-year-old Shumenov’s fourth title defense at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This is rather disappointing choice for Shumenov, because not only is he not facing a top 15 contender, he’s not even facing a light heavyweight. Ornelas, 31, is a super middleweight, who has struggled in the past when stepping it up against quality fighters.

Ornelas has been beaten by Bernard Hopkins, Robert Stieglitz and Marco Antonio Rubio in the last four years. The only he’s gotten have come against 2nd tier fighters during that time.

Shumenov has been less than overwhelming in terms of picking out exciting opposition since he captured the World Boxing Association title with a questionable 12 round split decision win over Gabriel Campillo in their rematch in January 2010. I had Campillo winning that fight by four rounds and I thought scoring was awful for that fight. Since winning the title, Shumenov had a good first defense against Vyacheslav Uzelkov in July 2010.

However, since then it’s been disappointing title defenses against 41-year-old William Joppy and 39-year-old Danny Santiago. Surprisingly, Shumenov took a lot of punishment in beating Santiago by a 9th round TKO last July in a truly performance. Santiago is the same fighter that Antonio Tarver and Zsolt Erdei both easily beat in 2007. Shumenov faced Santiago off of a 14 month layoff for Santiago.

With those two wins over older fighters, Shumenov is now apparently dipping down even further for another soft opponent in Ornelas. I’m just wondering why the WBA is sanctioning this fight. Doesn’t Ornelas have to be a contender? And why is Shumenov fighting a super middleweight instead of a light heavyweight? It’s very disappointing. Shumenov could really help himself if he started taking on notable fighters with a name, but he seems to be doing the opposite of that for some reason.