By Charles Brun: Eddie Hearn revealed on Thursday that he’s negotiating a fight between heavyweights Dereck Chisora and Adam Kownacki. The fight is still not signed, but Hearn seems hopeful that he can get it done.
Chisora (32-12, 23 KOs) has signed his portion of the contract, and they’re waiting for Kownacki to ink his side.
Apparently, this is the big fight that Hearn had talked about recently involving the 38-year-old former world title challenger Chisora.
Judging by the lukewarm reaction from boxing fans on social media, you can say that Kownacki (20-2, 15 KOs) isn’t a big enough name to get people amped up about Chisora’s next fight.
If Hearn wanted to impress fans, he should have chosen one of these heavyweights for Chisora’s next fight:
- Frank Sanchez
- Martin Bakole
- Zhilei Zhang
- Joe Joyce
- Hughie Fury
- Andy Ruiz Jr
- Alen Babic
- Michael Hunter
- Luis Ortiz
Of course, it’s unlikely that Chisora could beat any of those heavyweights other than perhaps Babic, who is more of a Dave Allen type of fighter.
One huge problem with Hearn matching the struggling 33-year-old Poland-born Kownacki as Chisora’s next opponent is that he’s lost his last two fights by knockout against Robert Helenius. That’s a problem.
Secondly, Kownacki hasn’t won a fight in three years since his victory over Chris Arreola in 2019, and that was a real war. Finally, Kownacki isn’t ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies, and, of course, neither is Chisora.
“The fights not signed. Derek has signed his side, and Adam Kownacki looks to sign his side if he’s up for it. We hope he is, it’s a tremendous fight. Yeah, we got everyone talking for sure,” said Eddie Hearn to iFL TV on Derek Chisora’s next big potential fight against Adam Kownacki.
Hearn is obviously counting on Kownacki’s name recognition among boxing fans to get them excited about seeing him as the next opponent for the struggling Chisora.
It would be criminal to put Chisora in with anyone halfway decent from the top tier in the division because he’s lost his last three fights to Joseph Parker x 2 and Oleksandr Usyk.
As chinny as Kownacki has looked recently, Chisora has a heck of a chance of beating him if this fight is made. Kownacki fell apart under the power of Helenius in their two fights.
Luckily for Kownacki, Chisora isn’t the puncher that Helenius is and isn’t as fresh as he is as well. If Kownacki can return to the form in 2018 when he was beating guys like Charles Martin, Gerald Washington, Iago Kiladze, and Adam Szpilka, Chisora is in for a long night.
Chisora looked completely ragged stamina-wise in his last two fights against Joseph Parker. Moreover, Chisora’s hand speed has gone downhill as well. His punches are really slow now, and he doesn’t look like he has the gas tank that he once possessed.
