By Scott Gilfoid: Well, you knew it was too good to be true. Instead of undefeated Errol Spence Jr. (20-0, 17 KOs) being he mandatory challenger for IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (36-0, 25 KOs) straightaway, the International Boxing Federation is requiring that Spence face #3 IBF Konstantin Ponomarev (30-0, 13 KOs) in an official IBF eliminator before he can become Brook’s mandatory. In other words, it wasn’t enough that Spence beat the highly accomplished Chris Algieri last Saturday night.
Spence will need to fight the 23-year-old light hitting Ponomarev before he can earn the mandatory spot to fight Brook. This doesn’t mean that Brook will have extra time to make voluntary defenses for the next two years, because he’s going to need to start negotiations for a fight against the winner of the Spence vs. Ponomarev until late in the year in October. Ponomarev = Algieri 2.0 in my view. For the fans who didn’t get to see Spence fight Algieri last Saturday night, they’ll get a chance to see Spence fight a very similar fighter in Algieri in Ponomarev. I see this as a pure slaughter, and it’s too bad the IBF couldn’t find a better fighter to rank at #3 than Ponomarev. Spence is #2 with the IBF, and sadly Kevin Bizier is #1.
Ponomarev is basically a carbon copy of Algieri. Ponomarev is tall like Algieri at 5’10”, has no punching power, likes to jab, and he throws a lot of punches. Ponomarev is easy to hit and he’s not particularly fast of hand or feet. He can punch on the inside as well as on the outside. However, Ponomarev’s power is limited. He’s beaten some decent fringe level/2nd tier fighters like Brad Solomon, Mikael Zewski and Steve Claggett. Ponomarev wasn’t overly impressive in any of those fights, but he showed that he was better than those guys.
Zewski marked up Ponomarev’s face pretty badly, and if he had the sense enough to know that he needed to jump on him and throw nonstop punches, he probably would have won the fight. Zewski made a mistake of trying to load up on single shots against Ponomarev and this enabled the Russian to jab him and throw flurries to get the decision win.
“Errol Spence is the No 2 contender. We just ordered Errol Spence and the No 3 contender Konstantin Ponomarev to start negotiating for the eliminator for the No 1 and the mandatory position,” said IBF championships chairman Lindsey E Tucker to skysports.com.
Hopefully the negotiations and the scheduling of the Spence vs. Ponomarev doesn’t eat up too much time, because it would be a disappointment if the winner of the fight gets bogged down for the remainder of this year in trying to make the fight happen. We’ve seen how WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder ate up a lot of time negotiating his title defense against Alexander Povetkin. The same for Tyson Fury vs. Wladimir Klitschko.
Ponomarev is a smart fighter, but he can be overwhelmed by shots against any big punching welterweight in the division. It won’t take just Spence to beat Ponomarev. Any big puncher in the division would put hands on Ponomarev and either stop him or beat him down to the point where it would be forlorn.
You can argue that Ponomarev is a slight upgrade from some of the IBF’s past top five contenders like Jo Jo Dan and Kevin Bizier, but not by much. He’s still from the same limited mold in being a light puncher that is easy to hit. Personally, I see Ponomarev as another fringe contender with an inflated ranking. Spence will blow through this guy within six rounds. I suspect Ponomarev will run and hold to try and survive, but he’s not going to have any chance of winning by fighting like that.
Ponomarev is the type of fighter that would give someone like Danny Garcia trouble, but not Errol Spence. This is going to be a very, very easy fight for Spence. You can argue that Spence fought much better opposition in the amateur ranks against the likes of Sammy Vasquez, Serik Sapiyev, Andrey Zamkovoy. Only Vasquez turned pro of those three, and he would likely be blown out by Spence if that fight was to happen in the pros. The same with Sapiyev and Zamkovoy. Those fighters are feather-fisted like Ponomarev and would be on the constant retreat from Spence’s furious attacks.
It’s too bad Spence is going to waste a fight facing the little known Ponomarev because there are clearly better fighters in the division with bigger names for Spence to fight than this light hitter with his padded record. Like I said, Ponomarev is Algieri 2.0. He’s the same fighter but less power and less skills. I think Algieri would beat Ponomarev if that fighter was to ever happen.
I don’t see why Algieri would ever waste his time with fighting Ponomarev unless he were ordered by one of the sanctioning bodies. Algieri has bigger fish to goals in minds rather than fighting guys that haven’t done anything in their careers like Ponomarev.
Spence and his adviser Al Haymon need to decide if they want to waste time jumping through the IBF’s hoops just so they can unseat Brook or instead go after a bigger name than Brook in a fight that can be made almost immediately against WBC champion Danny Garcia. Spence wouldn’t have to waste valuable time in his career fighting guys with inflated ranking and zero power like Ponomarev in order to get the title shot against Garcia.
Spence’s promoter Lou Dibella talked about Spence being in the audience for the Keith Thurman vs. Shawn Porter fight on June 25. If Spence could face the winner of that fight, then he wouldn’t have to waste time with his career beating up on one after another of the IBF’s weak contenders. He could just face Thurman or Porter for the WBA title. That might be the best thing for Spence to do because it would be an easy fight to make because those guys are with Haymon as well, and Spence wouldn’t have to use up his career fighting guys with no name that the U.S fans won’t be able to recognize.
Spence vs. Ponomarev is not a fight that would likely attract a lot of interest from casual boxing fans in the U.S due to Ponomarev not having a large fan base. It’s up to Spence, Haymon and Dibella whether Spence should burn up a valuable fight on facing the light hitting Ponomarev rather than going straightaway to fight for a world title against Garcia or the Thurman vs. Porter winner. I frankly like the WBC and WBA’s rankings a lot better than the IBF’s.
It would be a pity for Spence to whip Ponomarev and Brook to win the IBF 147lb title, but then get stuck having to burn up valuable fights as the IBF champion fighting guys like Jo Jo Dan, Bizier, and Ponomarev all the time. It might be better for Spence to forget about the IBF belt and just focus on the WBA or WBC titles. If Spence does want the IBF title just so that he can get the Brook fight, then I think he should take it, and then after he beats Brook, he can vacate the IBF title and then focus on fighting for the WBA and WBC titles.