By Allan Fox: WBC light heavyweight champion Oleksander Gvozdyk (16-0, 13 KOs) weighed in at 174.7 lbs for his title defense against #8 WBC Doudou Ngumbu (38-8, 14 KOs) this Saturday night on Top Rank Boxing on ESPN at the 2300 Arena, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Doudou, 37, weighed in at 174.3 lbs. The fight card on ESPN starts at 10:00 p.m. ET.
Doudou is an odd choice for Gvozdyk to be making his first defense of his WBC title against, because the France based fighter was beaten by Igor Mikhalkin by a 12 round decision just two fights ago. There are a lot of other more suitable contenders that Gvozdyk could have been put in with rather than a guy with almost ten defeats on his resume. It’s unclear why Top Rank picked Doudou out for Gvozdyk to fight other than it being a fight that he’s almost guaranteed to win and look good doing so. Doudou is coming off a 12 round majority decision win over Yoann Kongolo last May. You can’t say the win over Kongolo earned the fight against Gvozdyk, because this is a voluntary defense for the Ukrainian fighter.
Gvozdyk’s last fight against former WBC 175 lb champion Adonis ‘Superman’ Stevenson last November ended tragically with Stevenson suffering a brain injury that put him in the hospital. Stevenson, 41, ended up needing surgery that left him in a coma for some time after.
“This is part of the sport,” Gvozdyk said to ESPN.com. “We are supposed to be professionals. It’s a sad situation, but (Stevenson is) getting better. I’m not feeling any burden because he is doing good. Still recovering, but as far as I know he is doing good.”
The concern with Gvozdyk coming off of such a traumatic fight is whether there will be guilt on his part carrying over to his fight with Doudou, 37, on Saturday. If Gvozdyk is feeling guilt for having ended the career of Stevenson, a very talented fighter, it’s possible that he may not perform at the level that he’s performed at in the past. Further, Gvozdyk took a lot of punishment in that fight. Top Rank deciding to match Gvozdyk soft by having fight a guy with a lot of loses, and who was recently beaten, it could ensure that nothing goes wrong in this match.
Unclear how Gvozdyk would have gone against a younger Stevenson. The way that Stevenson had Gvozdyk looking hurt in the 10th round, it’s hard to predict what the outcome would have been had the two met up five to seven years earlier.
There are some good fights out there for Gvozdyk in the division if his promoters at Top Rank Boxing are on board with making them. IBF champion Artur Beterbiev, WBA champ Dmitry Bivol, WBO belt holder Sergey Kovalev and highly ranked contender Marcus Browne would all be great options for Gvozdyk if he and his promoters at Top Rank are willing to make the fights. Given the type of opponent that Gvozdyk is being matched against in Doudou, it’s possible that Top Rank will look to try and turn him into a star the easy way by matching him against beatable guys instead of the fighters that could potentially beat him like Bivol, Beterbiev, Kovalev and Browne.
Gvozdyk is going to need to throw a lot more punches to beat those fighters than what he showed in his fight with Stevenson. Gvozdyk was losing that fight because he wasn’t throwing enough punches, and he looked timid. To beat the best, Gvozdyk has to let his hands go. He’s not a big enough puncher to try and score a knockout late in the fight when he’s behind on the scorecards because he hasn’t thrown enough shots.
“When he hit me in the second round I felt the punch,” Gvozdyk said about Stevenson. “I realized this is a guy when he hits you, he hurts you. This is a really tough puncher. And now I understand why Stevenson stayed there (as champion) for so long.”
Stevenson held the World Boxing Council 175 lb title from 2013 to 2018. That’s a long time for anyone to be a world champion. Of course, some fans would argue that Stevenson took a voluntary defenses during that five-year run against less than the best opposition. After Stevenson successfully defended against his WBC mandatory in November 2013 in stopping Tony Bellew in the sixth round, he didn’t have another mandatory defense until his fight against Gvozdyk. However, Stevenson’s voluntary defense against Badou Jack, which took place prior to the Gvozdyk fight, was as tough as any mandatory defense could be. Stevenson-Jack ended in a 12 round draw, and it was a punishing fight for both guys, not just Stevenson. Jack took a lot of major shots, and was lucky to get a draw. If Gvozdyk can hold onto his WBC title for as long as Stevenson, it would be a major accomplishment on his career. Gvozdyk, 31, has youth working on his side, as he’s starting his title run at an earlier age than Stevenson. However, Gvozdyk isn’t as fast and he’s not a southpaw like Stevenson. It’s going to be harder for Gvozdyk to stay the WBC champion unless Top Rank keeps him away from the other talented champions in the 175 lb division. If they do that, Gvozdyk will stay a world champion longer, but he probably won’t become popular with the U.S boxing fans. They’re not going to be excited at seeing Gvozdyk defend against fighters like Doudou all the time. When the fans see talented fighters like Beterbiev, Jack, Kovalev, Bivol and Browne putting it on the line by facing the best, they’re going to wonder what’s Gvozdyk’s problem that’s keeping him from fighting the best.
In other weights on the card, welterweight Kudratillo Abdukakhorov (15-0, 9 KOs) weighed in at 145.8 lbs for his 12 round scheduled IBF 147 lb title eliminator against Keita Obara (20-3-1, 18 KOs). The winner of the fight will be the International Boxing Federation mandatory challenger to champion Errol Spence Jr. Abdukakhorov, 25, is a talented fighter, but he’s not shown the type of ability that suggests that he’ll do well against Spence. Obara, 32, weighed in at 146.2 lbs.
Other weights for the card as follows:
Ray Robinson 145.8 vs. Egidijus Kavaliauskas 146.1
Fredrick Lawson 146.7 vs. Juan Ruiz 149.
Cassius Chaney 248.6 vs. Christian Mariscal ??
Sonny Conto 217.1 vs. Omar Acosta 206.6
Jeremy Adorno 120.1 vs. Sebastian Baltazar 120.3