By Jim Dower: Former WBA heavyweight champion Lucas “Big Daddy” Browne (25-0, 22 KOs) is reportedly fighting unbeaten Sergey Kuzmin (11-0, 8 KOs) on November 27 for the WBA Inter-Continental title in Moscow, Russia.
Kuzmin has big time power going for him as well as his youth. What he doesn’t have is much experience as a pro against good opposition. Kuzmin holds Eurasia Pacific Boxing Council heavyweight title. During his time as an amateur, Kuzmin captured the 2010 Amateur Boxing championship title. Kuzmin also beat Joe Joyce of Great Britain by a 1st round knockout in 2013 at the 2013 European Amateur Boxing Championships. Joyce improved immensely and went on to capture a silver medal in the 2016 Olympics in losing a close decision to Tony Yoka of France in the finals. I’m not sure that Kuzmin could hang with Joyce right now. In the amateur ranks, Kuzmin caught Joyce at the right time 4 years ago when he was still green.
Kuzmin has some good wins during his amateur career in beating Olympic gold medalist Robert Cammarelle of Italy and Ivan Dychko. Whether Kuzimin can hang with Lucas Browne in the pros is a different matter. Many of Kuzmin’s wins in the amateur ranks took place many years ago, and he looked slow and crude even back then.
Browne, 38, is trying to get momentum back with his career since testing positive for a banned drug after knocking out WBA World heavyweight champion Ruslan Chaggaev last year on March 5. After 15 months out of the ring, Browne recently defeated journeyman Matthew Greer (16-20) by a 2nd round knockout on June 2.
The 30-year-old Russian Kuzmin turned pro in 2014. He has wins over Malcolm Tann, Vaclav Pejsar, Mike Sheppard and Konstantin Airich. Kuzman has heavy hands and good size at 6’3”, 244 lbs. However, Kuzmin has never beaten anyone of note, and he’s not viewed as a future world champion caliber fighter.
This is a big step up for Kuzmin to take on a fighter of Browne’s level. What you can say about Kuzmin is he’s catching Browne at the right time in his career with him having only 1 fight in the last year and a half, and being 38.
As a pro, Kuzmin has looked good and bad. He’s very slow and he tends to throw looping shots that leave himself open to being countered. Kuzmin went the distance against journeyman Emilio Ezequel Zarate in his second fight as a pro in 2015. This is the same Zarate that Shannon Briggs knocked out in the 1st round in 2016, and Hughie Fury stopped in the 2nd round in 2015. It’s not a good sign that Kuzmin was forced to go the full 6 rounds with Zarate. It suggests that Kuzmin doesn’t have the power or the boxing skills to put away a mediocre journeyman level fighter.
Browne can really punch, and Kuzmin is not hard to find at all. If Kuzmin fights with his usual wide open style against Browne, he could get taken out quickly. Kuzmin is a wild slugger. He’s going to have problems against the heavyweights that can box and move on him. Browne is definitely is going to test Kuzmin’s chin. But like I said, Kuzmin is catching Browne at the right time in his career. He might be too young for Browne to deal with.