As the holiday season was about to begin, boxing was mostly absent in North America and Western Europe. Not everyone celebrates the same traditions, however, so I still have a small collection of fights to report on from around the world. This week we have a world title eliminator, a few Olympians, and an Alexander Dimitrenko sighting.
Saturday, December 23rd
Vijender Singh (10-0, 7 KOs) UD10 Ernest Amuzu (23-3, 21 KOs), super middleweights – India
Long a staple of the world amateur scene, Vijender Singh qualified for and participated in three Olympics and five World Championships. While he never medaled in any of them, he also only was only bounced in his first fight twice in those eight major events. He turned pro in October of 2015 and has spent his last couple fights collecting minor WBO belts, putting himself just inside their top ten in the process. As a pro, Singh is already pretty clearly India’s top pound for pound fighter, but that isn’t saying a ton yet. That is a potential absolutely lucrative market that boxing has left largely untouched in its history. Singh had a promotional relationship with Frank Warren, but Singh terminated it prior to this bout and is now going at it with a local outfit. At 32, there does need to be some career movement sooner rather than later, like in 2018 for example. Here Singh picked up his tenth professional win.
Friday, December 22nd
Fatih Keles (10-0-1, 5 KOs) MD10 Renald Garrido (19-18-2, 3 KOs), junior welterweights – Germany
This fight was a rematch of a July surprise in which 2016 Turkish Olympian Fatih Keles was surprisingly held to a draw against Garrido and his journeyman record. At the time, I cut Keles some slack. Garrido had recently given Frankie Gavin some trouble too and seemed to be outperforming his record by only losing to elite fighters and beating everyone else. This probably still holds true as Garrido since then has fight twice, first losing wide to Cletus Seldin and then competitively with unbeaten Northern Irish prospect Tyrone McKenna, Yet, I can’t help but feel disappointed that Keles still only managed a majority decision in the rematch. Garrido is definitely a much tougher out than any 19-18-3 fighter has any right to be, but I suspect Keles isn’t necessarily a world class talent either.
Alexander Dimitrenko (40-3-1, 26 KOs) D10 Miljan Rovcanin (18-0-1, 10 KOs), heavyweights – Germany
After being thoroughly outclassed and embarrassed by Joseph Parker last October, it looked like Alexander Dimitrenko had finally run out of lives at the world level. He was then in March brought to Finland to be sacrificed to their rising unbeaten prospect Adrian Granat, but Dimitrenko surprised them by instead scoring a first round finish of his own, How does he return from the big upset win? By being held to a draw against a completely unknown Serbian with one of the emptiest records you will ever see. His eighteen defeated opponents have a combined record of 68-176-5. Did I mention that Rovcanin lost three points along the way too? Alexander Dimitrenko never fails to impress in one direction or the other.
Giacobbe Fragomeni (36-5-2, 14 KOs) UD8 Tibor Laczo (3-8, 3 KOs), cruiserweights – Italy
Italy’s Fragomeni briefly held a cruiserweight belt back in 2008 and managed to not lose it to then top three cruiserweight Krzysztof Wlodarczyk via a draw in his first defense. He narrowly lost the belt to moving up popular German light heavyweight titlist Zsolt Erdei by majority decision in Germany and has since been stopped in two rematches with Wlodarczyk. This win puts Fragomeni on a four fight winning streak following his most recent loss to Rakhim Chakhkiev in 2014. Fragomeni, a 2000 Olympian, is now 48 years old, however, and very unlikely to be competitive with a top cruiserweight. If he wants to collect paydays like this against mediocre competition in Italy, by all means I hope he does well. No one should put him in with a top cruiserweight at this point though.
Thursday, December 21st
Maksim Vlasov (41-2, 24 KOs) TKO1 Vikapita Meroro (28-7, 14 KOs), cruiserweights – Russia
Maksim Vlasov is a Russian cruiserweight I have ranked just outside the top ten in the world. A year ago Vlasov scored a significant late 2016 stoppage win over fellow contender Rakhim Chakhkiev and he has followed that up with a perfect 4-0 run in 2017. This includes a stoppage win over competent Canadian fringe contender Denton Daley too. With most of the top cruiserweights tied up in the World Super Series, he has had to bide his time with these sort of fights unfortunately. He is at least winning them dominantly as he should. Of note, Vlasov is already twelve year pro at only age thirty. He actually turned pro at middleweight back in 2005. On his way up to cruiserweight he lost very close fights to both Isaac Chilemba and Gilberto Ramirez as well. He is a good fighter and will probably be reasonably competitive against the top of the division when he gets there.
Umar Salamov (20-1, 15 KOs) UD10 Artem Redko (21-10-3, 12 KOs), cruiserweights – Russia
Russian light heavyweight Umar Salamov was just starting to get some real hype as a notable prospect when he was upset in July by once beaten and thought to be damaged Australian Olympian Damien Hooper on the Pacquiao v Horn undercard. This was his first fight back. I don’t know the details, but I really hope Hooper took this fight on short notice or something and that explains the cruiserweight limit. As a light heavyweight prospect, the 23 year old still has the fluidity and pop that had begun to get him noticed. At cruiserweight I don’t know what he is.
Wednesday, December 20th
TJ Doheny (18-0, 13 KOs) SD12 Pipat Chaiporn (44-11-1, 27 KOs), super bantamweights – Thailand
This was a stupid decision, or so I read. I can’t find video. According to the press and fan reaction I am reading, however, Irish-Australian super bantamweight prospect went on the road to Thailand for this IBF eliminator and thoroughly dominated. Yet, he walked with only a split decision. At least the right man won. Chaiporn (who also goes by Mike Tawatchai) had some success early, I guess, but the last two thirds of this fight are being reported as a straight beating. At least the right man had his hand raised in the end. With the win, Doheny has become IBF super bantamweight titlist Ryosuke Iwasa’s mandatory challenger. That is a winnable fight for Australian prospect.
Tuesday, December 19th
Hiroki Okada (17-0, 12 KOs) KO6 Jason Pagara (40-3-1, 16 KOs), junior welterweights – Japan
It can be difficult to get a read on Japanese prospects up this high in weight. The domestic scene that they rely so heavily on doesn’t really exist like it does down say at the flyweights. This should settle it though. 28 year old Hiroki Okada is a real emerging prospect at junior welterweight. Jason Pagara is not a world class fighter, but both he and his brother Albert are real solid fighters on top of the pretty good Filipino domestic scene. It turns out Okada is much above that. The Japanese prospect and emerging contender dominated here on his way to becoming the first man to stop Jason Pagara.
