By Jeff Aranow: Former WBA ‘regular’ cruiserweight champion Yunier Dorticos (22-1, 21 KOs) faces Mateusz Masternak (41-4, 28 KOs) this Saturday in season II of their quarterfinal fight in the World Boxing Super Series cruiserweight tournament at the CFE Arena in Orlando, Florida.
Dorticos, 32, wants to knockout Masternak to move forward in the WBSS tournament. It’s been eight months since Dorticos was knocked out in the 12th round by Murat Gassiev in season I of the World Boxing Super Series last February. Dorticos was doing well against Gassiev until he faded in the championship rounds, and was stopped by the powerful Russian.
Masternak has failed each time he’s stepped up a level in his career against the better opposition that he’s faced. Masternak has past losses to Youri Kayembre Kalenga, Grigory Drozd, Johnny Muller and Tony Bellew. The positive you can say about Masternak from those losses is he was only knocked out once by former World Boxing Council cruiserweight champion Drozd in an 11th round stoppage in 2013. Drozd was a very good fighter before he ended his career in 2015. Masternak showed a lot of toughness in going to distance in defeats against Bellew and Kalenga. Masternak’s best wins have come against Ismayl Sillah, Kalenga and Eric Fields. Masternak avenged his loss to Kalenga from 2014 to beat him by a 6th round knockout.
“When I look at Masternak, I already see a man with KO written in his face,” said Dorticos. “Believe me the knockout is coming. I am going to KO everyone in front of me in this season.”
Dorticos’ fire power is going to make it awfully tough for Masternak to be able to stay in there to go the distance with him. What hurts Masternak’s chances of winning the fight is his lack of punching power. Masternak usually wins his fights by decision. That’s not good for him against Dorticos, because the Cuban knockout artist has a KO percentage of 91%. It’s a rare individual that is able to make it out of a fight against Dorticos. During his career, only Gassiev and Edison Miranda have been able to survive Dorticos’ punching power. It would be a moral victory for Masternak if he can survive to see the final bell against him.
Dorticos’ real test will come later when/if he fights former WBC cruiserweight champion Mairis Briedis, who gave Oleksandr Usyk all he could handle in losing a close 12 round majority decision last January. Dorticos. Briedis is facing Noel Gevor next month on November 10.
Prediction
Dorticos has got so much firepower going for him in this fight. It’s going to make it impossible for Masternak to stand up to his power for more than five rounds. That’s the point in the fight where Dorticos’ punching power and withering fire will get to Masternak. This is a really a guy that doesn’t belong inside the ring with a talented fighter like Dorticos. The type of fighters that should be in with Dorticos are guys like Usyk, Gassiev, Denis Lebedev, Beibut Shumenov, Maxim Vlasov, Krzystof Glowacki and Andrew Tabiti. Dorticos beats most of those fighters.