By Allan Fox: #12 WBA Ryan Coyne (21-0, 9 KO’s) will be facing #12 WBA Marcus Oliveira (24-0-1, 19 KOs) in a scheduled WBA light heavyweight eliminator bout on the undercard of the Bernard Hopkins vs. Tavoris Cloud fight card on HBO on March 9th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
The Coyne-Oliveira fight may not make it on the televised portion of the card, however, because the co-main event between Keith Thurman and Jan Zaveck and the Hopkins-Cloud fight appear to be the only ones HBO will be televising on that fight unless there’s a change of plans.
The winner of the Coyne vs. Oliveira fight will become the mandatory challenger for WBA light heavyweight champion Beibut Shumenov. That’s not exactly giving Shumenov a tough opponent because neither Coyne nor Oliveira look like world beaters despite both sporting unbeaten records. The light heavyweight division is so weak right now that you get fighters like Coyne and Oliveira with unbeaten records despite the fact that they’re less than dangerous.
Coyne, 30, is a southpaw with average hand speed, and not much in the way of power. His best wins have come against David McNemar, Dante Craig and Warren Browning. In other words, Coyne hasn’t really fought anyone yet that you can call really good.
Oliveira, 33, is kind of in the same boat as Coyne in that he’s not fought anyone really good either. His best fights have come against Otis Griffin, Antwun Echols, Chris Eppley and Ricky Torrez. Oliveira appears to have good power, but he’s still far from the likes of the top fighters at 175 in terms of talent. Chad Dawson, Bernard Hopkins, Shumenov and Tavoris Cloud would likely blew through Oliveira and Coyne on the same night.
Oliveira should be able to get past Coybe if he’s able to take the fight to him and land his big power shots. Coyne is there to be hit and Oliveira has the power.
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