By Scott Gilfoid: Kevin Johnson (29-4-1, 14 KO’s) has the perfect opponent tonight for him to look good against and show his stuff against the short, round WBO International heavyweight champion Dereck Chisora (19-4, 13 KO’s). This is the kind of opponent that Johnson is usually able to jab his head off, and him look bad. Johnson has the physical skills and talent to box circles around Chisora and put on a jabbing clinic if he’s got his conditioning right.
That’s the only thing that could potentially keep Johnson from clowning Chisora and turning him into another Damian Wills or Alex Leapai. Chisora doesn’t have the boxing skills to beat Johnson by a decision. I mean, I can see Chisora winning a decision, but only if Johnson is out of shape or if we get yet another controversial fight result involving Chisora like we’ve seen in 2 out of his last 3 fights.
Johnson, 34, has got arguably one of the best jabs in the entire heavyweight division. When he’s focused on using that weapon, he’s incredibly hard to beat because his opponents get past it. In facing Chisora, Johnson has got the ideal type of guy to jab because Chisora has that Joe Frazier type of fighting style where he leans forward in a crouch and literally leads with his head. Chisora tries to use his head movement, but if fools nobody and he ends up wasting his time with that. Believe me, Chisora’s head movement isn’t going to prevent Johnson from nailing him with jabs to the head in this fight.
Chisora needs his opponents like Johnson to back up to the ropes and just stand in place for him to land his shots. Chisora can’t fight in the center of the ring due to his lack of reach and his inability to straighten his shots out. Everything he throws has a loop to it, and they’re easy to block when a fighter realizes that’s all Chisora throws.
Johnson only has to send jabs straight down the middle and keep his guard high out in front of him to keep from getting hit with a rabbit shot to the back of the head. If Chisora is able to get his rabbit shots in, then it could be a problem for Johnson to try and win the fight because it’s likely the referee will count the rabbit blows as legit. I hope the referee does his job in controlling the rabbit blows, because it would be a tragedy if we saw another one of Chisora’s fights end with the guy getting brained by a punch to the back of the head like in his recent fights against Ondrej Pala and Malik Scott.
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