By Allan Fox: We may be seeing a rematch between former IBF featherweight champion Billy Dib (35-2, 21 KO’s) and newly crowned IBF champion Evgeny Gradovich (16-0, 8 KO’s), as Dan Rafael is reporting that the 27-year-old Dib had a rematch clause in his contract with Gradovich, although it’s not an immediate rematch.
Gradovich can defend the title once before having to face Dib in a rematch, if Dib chooses to face him again. It’s hard to imagine him choosing not to fight Gradovich again if for no other reason than to get a good payday.
However, the odds of Dib beating Gradovich in the rematch are remote at best because Gradovich proved clearly last Friday night that he’s simply a superior fighter than Dib in beating him by a 12 round split decision.
It may have been scored a split decision, but it was clearly a unanimous decision by Gradovich in real world terms. The referee that scored the fight 114-112 for Dib must have been watching something else that night because Dib was soundly beaten, and you can make a case where the 114-112 and 114-112 scores for Gradovich were giving Dib way too much credit because he was pretty well dominated from the 3rd round on.
Gradovich really took the fight to Dib once he got comfortable, and he really gave Dib a pounding. In the last four rounds, Dib was hit constantly with shots that had his head whip-lashing in response. Dib fought hard, but he didn’t have the power and the work rate to keep up with Gradovich. It just looked like Dib was trying to pot shot against a guy that was focusing on sheer volume punching. Without the power to turn Gradovich back, Dib took a real beating from him.
Dib doesn’t match up well against the other featherweight champions, so we’ll likely see him back in the ring against Gradovich real soon, and he’ll likely take another loss unless he somehow improves before then.
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