November brings a flurry of good fights to the boxing world. By the time this goes to print we will know the result of the Mundine-Rabchenko fight (Mundine won on points).
Later this week Wladimir Klitschko (62-3-0) takes on challenger Kubrat Pulev (20-0-0) for the IBF/WBO/WBA/IBO Heavyweight title.
Klitschko’s record is impressive. He has not lost a fight since he suffered a TKO at the hands of Lamon Brewster in 2010.
His most recent victory was in April when he completely outclassed our own Alex Leapai in five rounds, winning a TKO. At 6’6” he is a man mountain and he lives up to his nickname of Dr Steelhammer.
Kubrat ‘The Cobra’ Pulev matches Klitschko for height but has less experience. He has not lost any of his 20 bouts and interestingly he has beaten a number of boxers that have also fallen to Klitschko.
As a result I think this will be a very good fight. Two strong, experienced fighters with few weaknesses should go the distance. My prediction is a points decision to Klitschko.
The WBO Welter weight title is up for grabs on 22 November when Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2) takes a break from Basketball to fight Chris Algieri (19-0-0).
The undercard includes the WBO Featherweight title between Vasyl Lomachenko (31-5-2) and Chonlatarn Piriyapinyo (52-1-0).
Pacquiao brings a wealth of experience to this fight. He has won his last two fights but lost in 2012 to Juan Manuel Marquez by KO.
He got his revenge over Timothy Bradley in 2014 after Bradley knocked him out in 2012. He is confident and well prepared and is at home in Macau as well as anywhere.
Algieri on the other hand has had a string of wins against commendable fighters but this is the first time Algieri has fought outside of NY and 12 of his 20 fights have gone the distance and he is yet to inflict a KO on an opponent.
He is not without talent but he may find the experience a little daunting. I think Pacquiao will win and he may even KO Algieri.
The featherweight fight will be an interesting affair. Lomachenko is the current champion and an Olympic gold medallist. His major feat is to be the fastest winner of a professional title taking only three professional fights (Jamirez 2012, Salido 2014 and Russell, Jr in 2014) to win the vacant WBO crown.
His extensive amateur career saw him win far more then he lost.
His opponent is the 29-year-old from Thailand, Chonlatarn Piriyapinyo. He also has an impressive record, with 52 wins and only one points decision loss back in 2012 to the experienced Chris John. This coincidentally was his only major fight outside of Thailand. Chon will match Lomanchenko in preparation but I suspect the well travelled Ukrainian will win, possibly by TKO mid bout.
On the local front the AIS has just hosted the Brazilian men’s and women’s boxing teams and the ACT State titles commence on 29 November at the AIS.
Ralph Belbin APM and Philip Goodes have just been re-elected to the board of Boxing Australia withstanding challengers from three other candidates.
Boxing is a reasonably healthy state in Australia with the development of the Combat Sports Centre at the AIS providing a centre of excellence for the sport but on the flipside less money is available to train and support internationally competitive amateur boxers.
The sport has suffered a decline in registrations dropping from 2301 in 2012-13 to just 1860 in the financial year just finished.
Hopefully this trend will be reversed and if our Olympic and Commonwealth medal rates are any indication we should get back to healthy participation levels soon.
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