(Photo Credit: Sportart3 / Team De Carolis) By Scott Gilfoid: 20-year-old interim WBA super middleweight champion Vincent Feigenbutz (21-1, 19 KOs) and 31-year-old challenger Giovanni De Carolis (23-6, 11 KOs) both successfully weighed in on Friday for their rematch this Saturday night on January 9 at the Baden-Arena, in Offenburg, Germany.
The smaller 5’10 ½” Feigenbutz weighed in at only 166.8 pounds compared the taller 6’0” De Carolis, who came in at 167.1lbs. The referee for the fight is Gustavo Padilla.
The two fighters fought last October with Feigenbutz winning a disputed 12 round unanimous decision by the scores of 115-113, 114-113 and 115-113 in Germany. There was a lot of bellyaching from De Carolis and his boxing fans about the decision, but it was pretty clear to me that Feigenbutz deservedly won the contest.
If De Carolis wanted to make sure he got the victory, then he should have fought better in the second half of the fight, because Feigenbutz definitely finished strong down the stretch. He was connecting with some very powerful shots that were snapping De Carolis’ head back repeatedly in the last six rounds. When you want to be a champion, you’ve got to be able to finish strong otherwise you’re going to come out on the losing side each time around.
Feigenbutz is a good fighter for someone only 20-years-old. What makes him more impressive is the fact that he’s really little more than a small middleweight, who is fighting in a division above his size. Feigenbutz is the same size as the 5’10 ½” middleweight Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, but he chooses to fight in the 168lb division instead of at middleweight.
Feigenbutz would be a heck of a lot better if he moved down to middleweight where he would be a Saul “Canelo” Alvarez type of fighter. Feigenbutz weighs more than Golovkin, but he’s about the same weight as Canelo, who looks to be 180+ pound fighter.
It’s impressive that Feigenbutz is willing to fight bigger guys than himself at super middleweight rather than do what a lot of fighters do in dropping 10-15 pounds to fight in a weight a little lower than their body size.
Feigenbutz needs to go on the attack immediately in this fight rather than wait around and let De Carolis be first. That’s what Feigenbutz did the last time he fought De Carolis. He just stood there waiting for De Carolis to get his shots off, which he did again and again in the first six rounds of the fight. Feigenbutz later admitted that he had come into the fight sick with a bad cold, and that had effected his performance in that fight. But it was more than just a cold that slowed Feigenbutz down. He had the wrong game plan for the fight.
Instead of going after De Carolis with his big power shots, Feigenbutz was fighting much like Arthur Abraham does in waiting around until De Carolis would stop throwing shots before going after him. That’s a terrible way of fighting, and it let the fringe contender De Carolis have success in the fight. It would have been a one-sided contest if Feigenbutz had gone after De Carolis and buried him with punches the way he could have.
Feigenbutz reminds me of a younger and more powerful version of Mikkel Kessler. Feigenbutz can really punch, and he’s impressive fighter when he’s throwing combinations and on the attack. Feigenbutz is not impressive when he’s waiting around like he did the last time he fought De Carolis.
On the undercard of the Feigenbutz vs. De Carolis card will be British heavyweight Dereck Chisora (24-5, 16 KOs) facing Hungarian journeyman Andras Csomor (14-8-1, 12 KOs) in an 8 round contest. Chisora, 32, is making a name for himself in beating up on overmatched journeyman as of late, as he’s got a nice little four-fight winning streak going since his loss to Tyson Fury in November 2014. Since that defeat, Chisora has beaten the following little known fighters: Jakov Gospic, Peter Erdos, Marcelo Luiz Nascimento and Beka Lobjanidze. Those guys obviously aren’t exactly household names, are they? The good news is that Chisora will eventually break his routine of fighting journeyman and could possibly wind up facing British/Commonwealth heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua next or EBU heavyweight champion Robert Helenius. Either way, I see Chisora losing to both of them, so I see him once again having to hit the reset button on his career following the defeat. I guess we’ll then see Chisora going back to journeyman level opposition once again.
Alsop on the Feigebutz-De Carolis undercard if unbeaten cruiserweight contender Noel Gevor (19-0, 10 KOs) facing 39-year-old Valery Brudov (42-6, 28 KOs) in a scheduled 10 round fight. Brudov was stopped in the 4th round in his last fight by Rakhim Chakhkiev last year in April 2015. He’s been inactive ever since. This is the same Brudov that Tony Bellew went life and death with in their fight in March 2014. Bellew eventually got a stoppage win in the 12th, but it was a very, very tough fight for Bellew. The fight kind of showed you that Bellew isn’t really cut out for the cruiserweight division.
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