By Allan Fox: WBA World super middleweight champion Giovanni De Carolis (24-6-1, 12 KOs) successfully made weight on Friday in weighing in at 166.7 pounds for his rematch against #6 WBA Tyron Zeuge (18-0-1, 10 KOs) for their rematch this Saturday night at the MBS Arena in Potsdam, Germany. The 24-year-old Zeuge weighed in at 167.6lbs.
Zeuge is lucky to be getting a rematch at all, because he appeared to lose to the 32-year-old De Carolis last July in their fight in Berlin, Germany. The German Zeuge was quite lucky to be given a draw in the fight, because he was out-punched the entire fight by the 6-foot Italian De Carolis.
Zeuge suffered an arm injury in the fight, which limited his ability to throw punches in the last four rounds. What was controversial is the judges still gave Zeuge a draw out of the fight in scoring it 114-114, 114-114, and 115-114. This writer saw the De Carolis-Zeuge fight and had De Carolis winning 10 rounds to 2. However, Zeuge was the hometown fighter, and that obviously helped him a great deal dodging what likely would have been a certain loss if the fight had taken place at a neutral venue.
De Carolis is going to need to do more in the rematch on Saturday night if he wants to take the judges out of the fight, because once again the fight is taking place in Germany. It doesn’t matter that De Carolis is the WBA champion. Zeuge is the home fighter, and that’s going to make it tough on De Carolis to try and retain his World Boxing Association 168lb title. He might need a knockout in this fight to avoid another controversial outcome.
De Carolis said this to Fight News about his rematch with Zeuge:
“Watching the fight again on video I can confirm that in my opinion I should have been the winner, as the draw was a bit cheap to my performance,” said De Carolis. “I took the center of the ring looking to bring the fight and my punches were more effective than his. Anyway this time I will need to box more smoothly, without looking for the big K.O. and staying focused on my game plan. I had a great training camp and I feel really strong and motivated.”
De Carolis got the better of Zeuge during almost every exchange in the fight. The judges had to have seen something in Zeuge’s performance for them o score the fight a draw. It’s unknown what they were looking at though. De Carolis looked like the better fighter of the two for the entire 12 round fight. However, the German crowd was making noise each time Zeuge would throw punches, and this could have influenced the judges.
De Carolis has had it tough fighting in Germany in the last year. In October 2015, De Carolis lost a highly controversial 12 round unanimous decision to German fighter Vincent Feigenbutz in Germany. A lot of boxing fans who saw the fight felt that De Carolis had done more than enough to deserve the decision win. Instead, Feigenbutz was given a 12 round unanimous decision win by the scores 115-113, 114-113 and 115-113. De Carolis beat Feigenbutz by an 11th round knockout in their rematch in January of this year. De Carolis was ahead on all three of the scorecards at the time of the stoppage.
Like in their previous fight, De Carolis will have the power and the size advantage over Zeuge. It’s important for De Carolis to make sure he can take the judges out of the fight, because he’s likely going to find himself behind in the fight after 12 rounds unless he can get knockdowns. The German crowd is going to be rooting for Zeuge the entire fight, and it’ll make it appear that he’s doing better than he actually is. Zeuge has fast hands, but he can’t punch at all. De Carolis would be wise to increase his work rate so that the judges see him throwing punches as frequently as Zeuge.
Prediction: De Carolis by 12 round decision over Zeuge.
Other weights on card:
Stefan Haertel 167.6 vs Adasat Rodriguez 167.1
Artur Mann 200.4 vs Adam Gadajew TBA
Burak Sahin 225.5 vs Ferenc Zsalek 222.9
Deniz Ilbay 145.5 Anzor Gamgebeli TBA
Kai Robin Havnaa 197.3 vs Ihar Karavaeu TBA
Patrick Wojcicki 159.2 vs Frane Radnic 158.3
Arman Torosyan 157.6 vs Attlia Koros 159.6