By Scott Gilfoid: Heavyweight prospect Anthony Joshua (2-0, 2 KO’s) will be back in the ring next month against Dorian Darch (7-2, 1 KO’s) in 6-round at the ExCel Arena, Dockland, London, United Kingdom. This one shapes up to be a mismatch because Darch isn’t much of a puncher, and he was recently beaten by Hughie Fury and Ian Lewison.
Joshua should have an easy time with this fight because Darch is much smaller than him, and not someone that has the tools to give him any problems. We’re talking different levels here. I’m not sure what Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn sees him getting from this fight because it has one-way mismatch written all over it. I’d like to see Joshua step it up against at least a Euro level opponent given that he’s got the Olympic gold medal from the London Olympics in 2012. I wasn’t very impressed with any of Joshua’s victories in the Olympics and I felt he was beaten in 3 of the 4 fights, but he does have the gold medal. Since Joshua has the the Olympic experience, he should be fighting much better opposition than this because supposedly fighting in the Olympics is like having 4 pro fights.
Also fighting on the card is lightweight Kevin Mitchell (35-2, 25 KO’s) defending his IBF Inter-Continental lightweight strap against 39-year-old Brunet Zamora (25-1-2, 11 KO’s) of Italy in a fight that could go either way. Mitchell’s career has kind of been going downhill ever since he was blown out by Michael Katsidis in 3 rounds in 2010. Mitchell was later destroyed by WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns in 4 rounds last year in September. Mitchell has since beaten Sebastien Benito and Marco Lopez. But we’re not talking about major players at lightweight, are we? Mitchell will eventually have to step it up at some point to face a decent contender at lightweight and/or a champion, but I see him tasting defeat again once that happens. I think Mitchell is in the wrong division and needs to find a way to melt down to super featherweight or featherweight.
Welterweight Lee Purdy (20-4-1, 13 KO’s) will be trying to get his career back on the tracks following his 7th round beat down against IBF welterweight champion Devon Alexander last May. Purdy will be facing unbeaten 38-year-old Italian Leonard Bundu (29-0-2, 10 KO’s) in a scheduled 12 round bout. It’s kind of interesting that Mitchell is facing a 39-year-old and Purdy is facing a 38-year-old on the same card.
Also on the card is middleweight John Ryder against an opponent still to be determined, Erick Ochieng vs. TBA, cruiserweight Wadi Camacho vs. TBA and former IBF bantamweight champion Jamie McDonnell vs. TBA. I don’t know about you but I don’t think it’s a good sign that so many of the fights on the undercard still haven’t been completed yet with there just a month to go before the fight date. That gets spider sense tingling with me thinking that we could see a bunch of potential mismatches. I really hope not because there seems to be a lot of names here, but I don’t see one good match on the card yet. I’m not really interested in seeing Joshua beat up someone with only 1 knockout on his resume.
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