By Scott Gilfoid: WBA “regular” super middleweight champion Fedor Chudinov (13-0, 10 KOs) is ready to give #4 WBA Frank Buglioni (17-1-1, 13 KOs) a proper thrashing this Saturday night in their ’Man vs. Machine’ card at the Wembley Arena in London, UK. This will be the 28-year-old Chudinov’s first title defense of his WBA strap that he won last May with a close 12 round split decision win over Felix Sturm in Germany.
Chudinov will be facing Sturm again unfortunately after gets done taking care of business against the 26-year-old Buglioni. It seems that the World Boxing Association is going to be giving Sturm another chance at winning their WBA 168lb title.
I don’t see the outcome being any different no matter many times Chudinov and Sturm face each other. Chudinov just has too high of a work rate for aging fighter like the 36-year-old Sturm.
Buglioni has done pretty much nothing to deserve a title shot against Chudinov unless you consider losing to Sergey Khomitsky and getting a draw against Lee Markham as a way of earning a title shot. I’m kind of mystified in trying to figure out why Chudinov is wasting his time with Buglioni rather than someone with a less spotty record. I mean, you hate to see champions lowering the value of their titles by picking out challengers who can’t even beat gate keepers like Markham and Khomitsky.
Heck, I think Markham and Khomitsky are way more deserving of a title shot than the likes of Buglioni. It’s weird how losing is rewarded and winning is penalized in boxing. It’s so strange. It’s not like that in other sports. Buglioni should be in the back of the line after his fights against Markham and Khomitsky instead of at the front of the line getting a title shot.
“I’m here in London, I’m settled and I’m ready to fight,” Said Chudinov. “All my hard training has been done and now I just have to focus on Saturday night and keeping hold of my world title, nothing is more important.”
Chudinov will have a big advantage in punching power, work rate and talent in this fight. Buglioni is just an upright pot shot fighter with a weak chin. There’s nothing special about Buglioni. He’s good at landing pot shots and then scurrying away to the outside to avoid return fire. He doesn’t do well when he stands in the pocket and meets resistance. Markham and Khomitsky were battering Buglioni at will with power shots to the head.
I was surprised with the Mickey Mouse scoring of the Markham-Buglioni fight, because I had Markham winning a clear decision. I just don’t know what the judges were watching when they scored that fight.
“We’ve seen plenty of Frank Buglioni and I know what I have in front of me, he’s a good strong fighter but he will be found short at world championship level,” Chudinov said. “It doesn’t matter where I fight in the world, a ring is a ring to me and I will do the job that I have to do and I will beat Buglioni.”
There’s no question that Chudinov will come out ahead on Saturday with an impressive win in my view. The only question is does he KO Buglioni or batter him for 12 rounds to win an impressive decision. It’ll depend on Buglioni. If he stands in the pocket and actually tries to win the fight, then I see him getting smashed to bits by Chudinov in short order. It might be painful for Buglioni’s fans to watch the battering, but it must be done.
If Buglioni uses his hit and run fighting style, then he’ll simply lose and not look good in doing so. The only thing that Buglioni can try to do to get the win is to go after Chudinov and fight his fight by going for a knockout. That’s about all there is that he can do. If Buglioni uses his amateur style of fighting, he’s going to take a pounding and it’s going to be bad for him. I think it’s better if he gets it over with by going on the attack and maybe getting lucky.
For boxing fans interested in purchasing tickets for the fight here is the ticket information:
Priced at £40, £50, £75, £100 and £150* tickets are available from www.frankwarren.com, SSE Arena, Wembley on 0844 815 0815 and www.axs.com and Eventim on 0844 249 1000 and www.eventim.co.uk
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