By Scott Gilfoid: Interim WBA super middleweight champion Vincent Feigenbutz (21-1, 19 KOs) will be looking to leave no doubts about his superior talent this Saturday night on January 9th against #14 WBA fringe contender Giovanni De Carolis (23-6, 11 KOs) at the Baden-Arena in Offenburg, Germany.
It’s a downer that the 20-year-old Feigenbutz is having to fight De Carolis again period, because he already beat him last October in Germany, but De Carolis and many of his loyal boxing fans bellyached about the decision and this led to a rematch.
Feigenbutz beat De Carolis by the scores of 115-113, 114-113 and 115-113. I was good with the 115-113 score, as Feigenbutz clearly demonstrated that he was the better fighter of the two in the second half of the contest.
It was just the early part of the fight that had people thinking upset, because De Carolis was able to get a knockdown in the 1st round. It was more of a balance thing with Feigenbutz not having his feet set properly when he was hit with a right hand from De Carolis that he was not fully expecting. I do not think it was a hard shot by any means. Feigenbutz did not have his feet right at the time that De Carolis unloaded on him.
Feigenbutz was sick last October when he fought De Carolis, and that obviously kept him from being 100 percent for the fight. I mean, if you compare how Feigenbutz fought in the De Carolis fight to how he was fighting in his previous five fights, you can spot immediately that Feigenbutz had a heck of a lot more energy in those fight than he had when he was fighting De Carolis.
In hindsight, Feigenbutz should have done the right thing and postponed the fight until he was completely healthy and ready to fight hard. Instead, Feigenbutz was weak, listless and not able to fight hard for three minutes. Feigenbutz barely let his hands go at all in the fight.
Feigenbutz was mostly just standing there with his guard up like a statue round after round without throwing punches. However, when Feigenbutz did throw his shots, you could see that he had major punching power like a younger Mikkel Kessler. As sick as Feigenbutz was for the fight, he reminded me of Kessler, but with better punching power.
If Feigenbutz had thrown a respectable amount of punches per round, I think he would have stopped De Carolis without any problems whatsoever. Feigenbutz’s punching power is quite extraordinary. The only thing he needs to do is to make sure he stays busy constantly by going after his opponents instead of hanging back and letting them lead as he did against De Carolis last October.
The 20-year-old Feigenbutz is so young that he does not seem to realize how good he is. If he more mature, he would have wasted no time in getting rid of De Carolis like he was a speed bump in my view.
‘’The first fight against Giovanni was a real battle,’’ Feigenbutz said. ‘’Although I won the fight, I wasn’t happy with my performance as I know I can do better. I don’t want to use it as an excuse but I was recovering from a severe cold and therefore unable to fight to my full potential. This time, I’m fully fit and ready to beat him convincingly. I promised him the rematch in the ring after the first fight and have stayed true to my word.”
De Carolis lost to Arthur Abraham in 2013 by a wide 12 round unanimous decision. The scores were 120-108, 119-109 and 119-109. There is no way that Feigenbutz should have let De Carolis have his moments like he did if he had come into the fight healthy and focused on not giving this guy any chances.
The thing that De Carolis has going for him is his chin. He can take a great shot without being knocked out. His only stoppage defeat of his career was eight years ago in an 8th round knockout loss to Max Bursak in 2008. That was early in De Carolis’ career, and I cannot see him losing to Bursak now. Bursak has rather gone downhill lately with losses to Zac Dunn, Martin Murray and Jarrod Fletcher. We are not talking about the cream of the middleweight division with those losses, are we?
Feigenbutz is clearly the future of the super middleweight division. If he can continue to progress, he’s going to be impossible to defeat in the future.
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