Yunier Dorticos vs. Murat Gassiev on Feb.3 in Sochi, Russia

By Boxing News - 12/05/2017 - Comments

Image: Yunier Dorticos vs. Murat Gassiev on Feb.3 in Sochi, Russia

By Sean Jones: In a fight that promises to be action packed from start to finish, IBF World cruiserweight champion Murat Gassiev (25-0, 18 KOs) will be fighting WBA champion Yunier Dorticos (22-0, 21 KOs) on February 3 at the Bolshoy Ice Dome in Sochi, Russia.

This will be home country advantage for the 24-year-old Gassiev, who was born in Vladikavkaz, Russia. Dorticos, who is 7 years older at 31, is from Havana, Cuba and now lives in Miami, Florida. Gassiev and Dorticos will be competing in the semifinals of the World Boxing Super Series [WBSS] tournament. The other semifinals fight in the WBSS is Oleksandr Usyk vs. Mairis Briedis. That fight will likely be a game of cat and mouse with Usyk moving all around the ring from start to finish. That fight won’t likely be anywhere near as entertaining as Gassiev vs. Dorticos. Usyk is more of a pure boxer, whereas Dorticos and Gassiev are pure sluggers. Hopefully, the Usyk-Briedis doesn’t turn out to be a real bore to watch, because some of Usyk’s fights are dull for long periods.

Gassiev looked almost unbeatable in his last fight in stopping former cruiserweight world champion Krzysztof Wlodarczyk in the 3rd round in the quarterfinals of the World Boxing Super Series tournament on October 21 in Newark, New Jersey. Wlodarczyk never really gave himself a chance to win the fight with the way he fought scared the entire fight. That’s not the right to beat Gassiev. The right way is to go straight at him and throw tons of punches, which is what WBA Super World cruiserweight champion Denis Lebedev did in his fight with Gassiev last year on December 3 in Moscow, Russia. Lebedev lost the fight by a 12 round split decision, but he gave Gassiev tons of problems with his high work rate.

Gassiev spent much of each round waiting for Lebedev to stop throwing shots before he would let his own hands go. Gassiev doesn’t know how to throw shots in between the punches of his opponents. He’s one of those fighters who wait for his opponents to stop throwing punches before he lets his own hands go. The problem with that style of fighting is sometimes Gassiev is stuck waiting too long, and he ends up losing rounds. If Gassiev fights like that against Dorticos, he might not last long. Letting Dorticos unload with his power shots is a recipe doomed for failure. Gassiev has to try and counter Dorticos at some point, because the Cuban will tee off on him if he’s just going to cover up like a sparring partner. Gassiev’s trainer Abel Sanchez has a lot of work to do before he can improve his young fighter enough to beat an experienced former amateur star like Dorticos. Right now, Gassiev has too flaws to win this fight.

“The location for the semi-final was not important for me, but the fact that it will be in Russia and the beautiful city of Sochi makes me very glad,” said Gassiev. “Dorticos is a very good dangerous fighter. It is going to be great to test my skills against an opponent like him.”

Dorticos put in the most impressive performance in the WBSS tournament so far with his 2nd round knockout win over the powerful KO artist Dmitri Kudryashov in knocking him out in the 2nd round in the quarterfinals of the tournament on September 23 in San Antonio, Texas. Dorticos hit Kudryashov with a single shot to the head in the 2nd round, which sent him down on the canvas badly hurt. Kudryashov tried to get up to continue fighting, but his legs wouldn’t let him. That was supposed to be a competitive fight, but Dorticos’ enormous punching power prevented from happening. No one had ever knocked out Kudryashov like that before, and he’d been stopped previously during his career.

You have to favor Dorticos to beat Gassiev after seeing how he obliterated Kudryashov. There’s no ifs and buts about it. Dorticos looks like the more dangerous punchers, and the better skilled fighter of the two right now. Gassiev seems more like just a hard thrower, who is still incredibly green. Gassiev’s management would have done well to get him 20 more fights under his belt against quality opposition before they put him in with a fighter as talented as Dorticos. Gassiev didn’t have the benefit of a great amateur career to hone his boxing skills the way that Dorticos did. Gassiev is just a guy with huge power and a lot of size. That’s the other thing. The 6’3 ½” Gassiev is basically a small heavyweight, who is still able to melt down to cruiserweight to fight in that division. I doubt that Gassiev is going to be able to keep making weight for the cruiserweight division for too much longer before he’s forced to fight at heavyweight. Gassiev is in the same boat as Usyk. Both of these guys are too big for the cruiserweight division, and will soon be fighting at heavyweight. It’s going to be hard for Usyk and Gassiev to compete at heavyweight against the huge 6’5” and 6’7” heavyweights like Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder. Those are super heavyweights. Gassiev and Usyk would be smaller heavyweights in the Alexander Povetkin mold. We saw what happened to Povetkin when he tried fighting a super heavyweight in Wladimir Klitschko in 2013. Povetkin was too small and he got dominated.

Dorticos is a true cruiserweight and perfect for the division. He’ll be fighting at cruiserweight long after Gassiev moves up to heavyweight.

“I will work hard to take my opponent out,” said Dorticos. “I believe I am the best in the world. I can’t wait to show Gassiev…what ‘The KO Doctor’ is about!”

The winners of the Dorticos vs. Gassiev and Usyk vs. Briedis fight will meet up in the finals of the World Boxing Super Series next May in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. My prediction is the finals will see Dorticos facing Usyk next May. I’m saying it right now; Dorticos will win the WBSS tournament. He’ll catch Usyk with one of his single shots and knock him out. Dorticos only needs one punch to stop his opponents. He’s like the Julian Jackson of the cruiserweight division. Usyk bounces around a lot and wastes a lot of time and energy with his movement. But sooner or later, he’s going to need to come to Dorticos to land something, and once that happens, I see the Cuban knocking Usyk out cold. Usyk has problems against punchers. We saw that in the amateur ranks when he fought Artur Beterbiev and beat him twice by controversial decisions. Beterbiev appeared to beat Usyk both times, but the judges liked his weaker scoring punchers. The amateur system is still a mess. It’s nothing like the pro games. It’s more like fencing than boxing. The amateur system needs to catch up to the pro game so that the better fighters wind up winning the gold medals instead of having weaker punchers winning based on hitting their opponents with light punches with the white portion of the gloves.

Gassiev has potential to be a good fighter one day. I see the potential there in Gassiev’s game, but he has so far to go. His trainer Abel Sanchez needs to teach Gassiev how to throw punches in between his opponents’ shots, because he waits too long to let his hands go. Gassiev reminds me of former 2 division world champion Arthur Abraham with the way he waits until his opponents stop throwing punches before he starts hitting them back. That style of fighting has hurt Abraham’s career, causing him to lose to a lot of fighters that he would have had a chance to beat if he knew how to throw counter shots.