Beterbiev faces Ngumbu on June 12th on Spike

By Boxing News - 05/26/2015 - Comments

beterbiev1022By Dan Ambrose: #2 IBF, #4 WBA, #4 WBC, #5 WBO light heavyweight contender Artur Beterbiev (8-0, 8 KOs) will be looking to add another knockout victory to his impressive record next month against 33-year-old Doudou Ngumbu (34-6, 13 KOs) on June 12th in a scheduled 12 round bout on Spike TV on Premier Boxing Champions from the UIC Pavilion, in Chicago, Illinois, USA.

There’s little question whether the 30-year-old Beterbiev will win the fight, but he can impress fans if he’s able to score a knockout over the 33-year-old Ngumbu, who has only been knocked out once during his career in losing by a 5th round stoppage to the hard hitting Najib Mohammadi three years ago in June of 2012.

Ngumbu recently went 10 rounds in losing to the powerful light heavyweight Andrzej Fonfara by a 10 round unanimous decision in November of 2014. Fonfara had some problems at times in getting the better of Ngumbu, and Fonfara ended up winning the fight by the scores of 97-93, 98-92, and 97-93.

It’s important that Beterbiev look good in beating Ngumbu because he wants to keep moving up in the rankings so that he can become a mandatory challenger to face one of the champions. If Beterbiev can destroy Ngumbu quickly in the first three rounds, he would be really showing the difference between him and other fighters like Fonfara and Mohammadi. Ideally, it would be great if Beterbiev could get a fight against either of those guys before getting a world title shot, but that’s not likely to happen.

Beterbiev beat Sergey Kovalev, the current IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion, twice when the two of them were in the amateur ranks. Not surprisingly, Beterbiev feels like he’s got Kovalev’s number and he’d like to get a crack at him in the pros. But Beterbiev could give WBC champion Adonis Stevenson and WBA regular champion Juergen Braehmer a lot of problems if he can get either of them to give him a shot.

For that to happen though, Beterbiev will likely need to become the mandatory for either of them. They’re not likely going to simply volunteer to take on a dangerous puncher/pressure fighter like Beterbiev just for kicks. He’s too risky, and the money isn’t there right now for either of them to fight Beterbiev in a voluntary defense. But luckily for Beterbiev, the sanctioning bodies are quickly pushing him up the rankings despite him having so few fights.

Normally that kind of thing goes slowly, but they recognize Beterbiev’s talent and understand that he’s a two-time Olympian from Russia in 2008 and 2012. Beterbiev lost two some very good fighters in Oleksandr Usyk and Zhang Xiaoping. Usyk, who is bigger than Beterbiev, is now an undefeated cruiserweight contender and will likely soon be getting a world title shot in the near future.

In Beterbiev’s last fight, he destroyed former WBA light heavyweight champion Gabriel Campillo by a 4th round knockout last April in an IBF voluntary eliminator spot for No.2 spot. Beterbiev is now only behind #1 IBF Mohammedi in the IBF rankings for a shot at IBF champion Kovalev.

Also on the Beterbiev-Ngumbu card if WBA junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara facing Delvin Rodriguez, lightweight Ivan Redkach vs. Dejan Zlaticanin, light heavyweight Eleider Alvarez vs. Anatoliy Dudchenko and heavyweight Artur Szpilka vs. TBA.



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