(Picture by Emily Harney – KZ Event Productions) By Allen Fox: WBA World light heavyweight champion Beibut Shumenov (12-1, 8 KO’s) will be making his fourth defense of his World Boxing Association title on Saturday night against Enrique Ornelas (33-7, 21 KO’s) at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Shumenov, 28, wants to win this fight and move on to bigger and better things against the other title holders in the division. He definitely needs to start facing better opposition because he’s thus far had three unspectacular opponents since winning the title with a questionable 12 round decision over Gabriel Campillo.

Shumenov looked poor in his last fight in beating 38-year-old Danny Santiago by a 9th round TKO last July. Shumenov ended up getting bruised and swollen from Santiago, a fighter that both Antonio Tarver and Zsolt Erdei easily beat in the past.

Shumenov seems to lack hand speed and he looks really tight when he fights, as if he’s got little flexibility in his body. Since he lacks power and speed, Shumenov has to outwork his opponents and that leaves him open for getting hit a lot. He is good at throwing a lot of punches, but his stamina is questionable. When you see Shumenov fight in the 2nd half of his bouts, he often looked exhausted and beatable. However, he faced anyone that has had the talent to really put it on him, which is probably the only reason why he’s still the champion.

Shumenov should get past Ornelas on Saturday night this guy has already been beaten by Bernard Hopkins, Robert Stieglitz, Marco Antonio Rubio and Bronco McKart. That doesn’t mean that he’ll necessarily lose to Shumenov, because I rank all of those fighters above Shumenov in talent, but I still see him losing to him. Ornelas doesn’t throw a lot of punches and he doesn’t have much power. He’s just a good serviceable fighter that fights well enough to lose and isn’t much of a threat.