Sergey Kovalev vs. Vyacheslav Shabranskyy – Weights

By Boxing News - 11/24/2017 - Comments

Image: Sergey Kovalev vs. Vyacheslav Shabranskyy - Weights

By Jim Dower: Former light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (30-2-1, 26 KOs) weighed in at 174 pounds on Friday for his match this Saturday night against Vyacheslav Shabranskyy (19-1, 16 KOs) for the vacant WBO 175 lb. title at Madison Square Garden in New York. The fight will be televised on HBO Boxing at 10:00 p.m. ET.

(Photo credit David Spagnolo/Main Events)

This is it for Kovalev. It’s not going to get any easier than this for the 34-yeasr-old Kovalev to win a world title. If Kovalev can’t beat Shabranskyy, then he might as well pack it in and call it a career. Kovalev won’t be able to beat champions Dmitry Bivol, Adonis Stevenson or Artur Beterbiev if he can’t beat Shabranskyy.

Kovalev will need to start fast if he wants to win. He doesn’t possess the stamina to take the slow approach to beating the younger 30-year-old Shabranskyy.

The 30-year-old Shabranskyy weighed in at 174.8 lbs. Both guys looked good. Shabranskyy appears to have a slight height advantage over Kovalev, and looks more muscular in the upper body. Kovalev is listed as 6’0” compared to Shabranskyy, who is supposed to be 6’3 1/2”.

There doesn’t appear to be 3 ½” inches height difference between the two. If anything, Shabranskyy might be an inch taller than Kovalev, but that’s about it. The guys are almost the same size. The fight isn’t going to be won or lost on the difference in height. It’s more likely to be won on boxing skills, talent, power and experience.

Kovalev has slender arms for a fighter with as many knockouts as he does. Shabranskyy was clearly the more muscular fighter of the two.

In the weights for the co-feature bout, light heavyweight contender Sullivan Barrera (20-1, 14 KOs) weighed in at 174.8 pounds for his fight against Felix Valera (15-1, 13 KOs). Valera weighed 174.2 lbs. The fight is scheduled for 10 rounds. The winner of the Barrera vs. Valera fight will challenge WBA World light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol for his new title.

Struggling former featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa (27-2, 17 KOs) weighed in at 130.6 lbs. for his fight against former super featherweight champion Jason Sosa (20-2-4, 15 KOs). Sosa weighed 131.2 lbs. Sosa looked really over-matched in his last fight against WBO World super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko on April 8. Sosa was stopped in the 9th round of the fight, as he was getting hit at will by Lomachenko.

Sosa doesn’t usually look that bad. It was just that he was fighting a very good fighter in Loimachenko, who he has no business sharing the ring with. I don’t know if Gamboa is going to be able to do the same thing against Sosa that Lomachenko did. When Gamboa at his best 7 to 10 years ago, he would have made someone like Sosa look every bit as bad as Lomachenko did. Unfortunately for Gamboa, age and inactivitiy has robbed him of much of his physical boxing skills. Gamboa still has a ton of boxing knowledge, but his physical tools are nowhere near what they once were.

Other weights on the card:

Bakhram Murtazaliev (10-0, 8 KOs) 153.8 lbs. vs. Carlos Galvan (16-5-1, 15 KOs) 151.8 lbs.

Frank Galarza (17-2-2, 11 KOs) 153 vs. Jaime Herrera (15-4-1, 8 KOs) 153.2 lbs.

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