By Gav Duthie: In a surprise development Frank ‘Wise Guy’ Buglioni 16-1-1 (12) is to receive a title shot against new WBA regular champion Fedor Chudinov 13-0 (10) on July 24 at Wembley Arena. Buglioni had already been scheduled to fight on the date for a rematch with Lee Markham 14-2-1 (7) who he drew with just last month in defending his WBO European Super middleweight title.
It is highly debatable whether or not Buglioni is ready for a fight of this magnitude but one thing is for sure he will give it his all.
Surprise
Although Chudinov has only fought 13 pro fights himself he has a vastly experienced amateur pedigree and defeated 4-time champion Felix Sturm to win the world title. This is clearly seen as an easy voluntary defence for Chudinov as he starts his reign as champion. Buglioni is only rated with one organisation the WBO at #5 because he is their European champion. He is not rated with the WBA at all but it is understandable that he would jump at the chance at a shot.
Buglioni
Buglioni is a nice guy, with a decent workrate and solid punching power but I feel he is well out of his depth here. He was stopped by Sergio Khomitsky in round 6 a couple of years ago and was eating right hands the whole fight. He said he learned from the fight but I saw little improvement against Andrew Robinson and Lee Markham. He is quite a rigid fighter and is guilty of dropping the right hand when he throws his jab. You can get away with this if you are a fluid mover or have a great chin but I’m not convinced he has these attributes. Chudinov is rock solid and packs a punch.
Queensbury promotions sometimes follows a linear structure before getting title shots for their fighters. It can involve
– Around 12-15 fights against journeyman
– Fight for the British title
– Defend it 3 times to gain the Lonsdale belt outright
– Win the European title
– Fight eliminators to gain position against weaker champions
Usually their fighter is around 25 fights before they fight for a title but obviously Buglioni’s development hasn’t quite went according to the usual blueprint so Queensbury Promotions are probably thinking why not. If he isn’t going to do it now he might never get the chance after a loss and a draw already and of course the old cliche ‘he has a punchers chance’ always applies.
Prediction
Chudinov for me is a good prospect and not far off the wave of Eastern Europeans champions like Gennady Golovkin, Sergey Kovalev and is on a par with prospects like Artur Beterbiev, Osyk and Kudyrashov. This will likely be an early night for Buglioni but not in a good way.
Chudinov KO 3
Comments are closed.