On a weekend sandwiched between two weekends with no real big fights, we have a busy one. With three significant cards on Saturday alone, it would be easy to overlook Friday night’s ShoBox card. Don’t make that mistake. Rising junior welterweight prospect Ivan Baranchyk is quickly becoming one of the most reliable action fighters in the sport; he is must see TV.
Before I start praising Ivan Baranchyk (16-0, 10 KOs), I want to stress that I do not believe he can possibly be a real prospect. Without drastic changes, he will fail at the top levels of the sport rather dramatically. He lunges in with ridiculous punches, has no transition game between offense and defense, and he is constantly wide open. Technically speaking, Ivan Baranchyk is kind of a disaster.
But what a glorious disaster he is. The 24 year old Russian starts winging when the opening bell rings and stops when the fight is over. He has good power that he often smothers with his own unrelenting attack, but it will show through at the oddest times. He drops guys with punches from so far away that they are massive reaches of the sort that never carry their power. Yet, his do.
Most recently Baranchyk fought Abel Ramos on ShoBox in February. The fight was an absolute barn burner with both guys down along the way. Ivan had to rally down the stretch with his superior conditioning to pull out a fight in which Ramos landed over 50% of his punches. Because of course he did. Had the fight found a wider audience, it would be prominent in fight of the year discussions.
Ramos was a better fighter on paper than the opponent here in Philadelphia’s Keenan Smith (11-0, 6 KOs) is. Smith has only fought one fighter with a good record and that was in 2015 on ShoBox as well. I remember the Antoine Douglas main event of that card, but not Smith. No video of the fight exists so far as I can tell. This is the nature of ShoBox undercard fights, even for absolute fight nuts like myself. Nothing on the Philly fighter’s resume suggests he can compete with the unrelenting attack of Ivan Baranchyk, but hasn’t doesn’t mean can’t. Time and time again we have seen fighters come from no where before to surprise us. Baranchyk is certainly beatable too. Either way, it will certainly be fun.
This card is a quadruple header also featuring junior lightweight Kenneth Sims Jr (12-0, 4 KOs) versus Rolando Chinea (14-1-1, 6 KOs), bantamweights Adam Lopez (16-1-1, 8 KOs) against Glenn Dezurn (9-0, 6 KOs), and super bantamweight Leroy Davila (5-1, 3 KOs) fighting Joshua Greer Jr (13-1-1, 5 KOs). All six of these guys are ShoBox alumni as well, making this a full card of returnees. Dezurn and Davila fought each other in a very fun, somewhat controversially scored fight back in April. They are both in very deep here against Lopez and Greer relative to where they are in their careers. I look forward to seeing how they fair against known fighters.
None of this matters though. Ivan Baranchyk is fighting. Watch.
