By Eric Thomas: WBA Super World light heavyweight champion Beibut Shumenov (13-1, 8 KO’s) will be defending his World Boxing Association 175 lb. title in two months against little known fringe contender Tamas Kovacs (23-0, 14 KO’s) on December 14th on the undercard of the Adrien Broner vs. Marcos Maidana card at the MGM Grand, Grand Garden Arena, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
The fight won’t be on the televised pay-per-view portion of the Showtime card, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN.
This is an optional title defense for the 30-year-old Shumenov, who hasn’t fought since last year in June of 2012 when he defeated Enrique Ornelas. It’s unknown why Shumenov has taken so long to get around to defending his WBA title, but he’s going to need to get a little busier if he wants to take on all the big names in the division.
Fighting once a year isn’t going to do much for Shumenov’s legacy, especially when he’s facing guys like Kovacs, William Joppy and Danny Santiago. Shumenov needs to get busy and start facing guys like Sergey Kovalev, Bernard Hopkins, Nathan Cleverly, Jurgen Braehmer, Lucian Bute, Tavoris Cloud, Adonis Stevenson, Jean Pascal and Chad Dawson.
Kovacs’ last four wins have come against Said Mbelwa, Peter Vecsei, Sami Selesmaa and Steve Kroekel. None of them are recognizable names, and it’s hard to believe that the WBA has sanctioned him as a worthy title defense for Shumenov. After a year and half, it would nice to see Shumenov facing his mandatory challenger rather than the #14 WBA Kovacs.
Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer told ESPN “Beibut is a very talented and exciting fighter in one of the best divisions of the sport. We have big plans for him and are excited to be working with him and his team.”
If Golden Boy could put Shumenov in with some recognizable names for a change and get him to start defending his WBA title 3-4 times per year, he might be able to build a fan base in the United States. But he’s not going to be able to accomplish that by fighting once every 16 months.
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