Britain's exciting Dereck Chisora (19-4, 13) will return to the ring on February 15th at London's Copper Box Arena to make the first defense of his European Heavyweight title.
Chisora, who won the title back in September by defeating Edmund Gerber, will be taking on unbeaten Ukrainian Andriy Rudenko (24-0, 16). Although Rudenko has a pretty good looking record his opponents, so far, have been poor with the most notable opponents not being anything to write home about.
As of the November 2013 EBU rankings (the latest available on their website) Rudenko was ranked at #17. That means there are 16 better ranked European Heavyweights, including the likes of Erkan Teper and Johann Duhaupas who would both make for interesting fights with Chisora. Unfortunately however it seems that this is a safe fight for Chisora who has high world rankings and will likely be looking for a world title fight later in 2014, a fight that he won't be wanting to jeopardise.
With Chisora clearly rebuilding his career after a number of losses, 2013 was a good year with 4 wins, all by KO. Unfortunately however a victory over Rudenko isn't a step forward after victories over Gerber and Malik Scott and Ondrej Pala which should have acted as a stepping stone to bigger and better fights in 2014. Sure a fight with David Price has fallen through due to Price's situation but how about a Commonwealth title fight with Lucas Browne in summer? Or a fight with either Deontay Wilder of Tyson Fury in a world title eliminator?
There are options out their for Chisora, though it seems that this fight has been a bad choice if you ask us.
Chisora, who won the title back in September by defeating Edmund Gerber, will be taking on unbeaten Ukrainian Andriy Rudenko (24-0, 16). Although Rudenko has a pretty good looking record his opponents, so far, have been poor with the most notable opponents not being anything to write home about.
As of the November 2013 EBU rankings (the latest available on their website) Rudenko was ranked at #17. That means there are 16 better ranked European Heavyweights, including the likes of Erkan Teper and Johann Duhaupas who would both make for interesting fights with Chisora. Unfortunately however it seems that this is a safe fight for Chisora who has high world rankings and will likely be looking for a world title fight later in 2014, a fight that he won't be wanting to jeopardise.
With Chisora clearly rebuilding his career after a number of losses, 2013 was a good year with 4 wins, all by KO. Unfortunately however a victory over Rudenko isn't a step forward after victories over Gerber and Malik Scott and Ondrej Pala which should have acted as a stepping stone to bigger and better fights in 2014. Sure a fight with David Price has fallen through due to Price's situation but how about a Commonwealth title fight with Lucas Browne in summer? Or a fight with either Deontay Wilder of Tyson Fury in a world title eliminator?
There are options out their for Chisora, though it seems that this fight has been a bad choice if you ask us.