Gvozdyk looks great; Toney faces Sheppard on May 13- News

Boxingnews24.com

By Allan Fox: Unbeaten light heavyweight contender Oleksandr Gvozdyk (13-0, 11 KOs) looked great in beating Yunieski Gonzalez (18-3, 14 KOs) in a 3rd round TKO last Saturday night in the performance of the night on the Vasyl Lomachenko vs. Jason Sosa card at the MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland. The 29-year-old Gvozdyk ramped up his offense in the 3rd round after testing out Gonzalez’s chin with some fast punches that sent him down.

It looked too easy. Gonzalez went down from some punches that did not look all that powerful. His punch resistance was nowhere to be found. The fight was stopped by Gonzalez’s corner. The referee should have stepped in to stop the fight after the knockdown in the 3rd, because Gonzalez was out on his feet after he got up. He looked like a drunk with the wild swings he was making in a desperate effort to try and knock Gvozdyk out.

Gvozdyk showed the kind of punching power that could lead to him winning a world title in the very near future with TKO win over Gonzalez. The Ukrainian 2012 bronze medalist showed the kind of talent that many boxing fans expected from him when he first turned pro four years ago.
Gvozdyk showed zero respect for Gonzalez’s power, as he went after him with blistering shots that the Cuban fighter was too slow to block. The fight was slightly competitive in round 1, but then it was all Gvozdyk starting in the 2nd round.

“He was very strong. Once I got him hurt, I just kept throwing punches. I wanted to get him out of there,” said Gvozdyk about Gonzalez.

The final punch stats showed how much Gvozdyk had dominated the Cuban fighter. He connected with over 4 times the amount of punches that Gonzalez in the short 3-round fight. Gvozdyk landed 116 of 256 punches for a connect percentage of 45%, according to CompuBox. Gonzalez landed far fewer punches in connecting on just 26 of 165 shots for a connect percentage of 16%. It was a bad mismatch. The promoters for Gvozdyk obviously knew how much better he was than Gonzalez. It would be more interesting to see if Gvozdyk’s promoters would be willing to risk putting him in with unbeaten Artur Beterbiev, because that would be a real risk.

With this big win under his belt, Gvozdyk could be facing Joe Smith Jr. (23-1, 19 KOs) in his next fight. It would be a fight that set the winner up for a title shot against WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson at some point in the future.

While Gvozdyk looked good last Saturday night against a limited fighter in Gonzalez, there are still a lot of questions that need to be answered before he can be seen as the next star at light heavyweight. Gvozdyk will need to prove that he can beat someone with punching power that fights smart, and who can take a punch. We’ll get that answer when Gvozdyk eventually fights someone like Adonis Stevenson, Sergey Kovalev and Artur Beterbiev.

Gonzalez was able to touch Gvozdyk more than a few times last Saturday, and he was doing a poor job of cutting off the ring. Kovalev and Beterbiev are very good at cutting off the ring and forcing their opponents to fight. Gvozdyk might get exposed when he faces those fighters. He might win though too just like he did against Gonzalez last Saturday.

Other fight results on Saturday’s Lomachenko-Sosa card:

Mike Reed UD 10 Reyes Sanchez

Jesse Hart TKO 5 Alan Campa

Patrick Harris UD 8 Omar Garcia

Egidijus Kavaliauskas TKO 4 Ramses Agaton

James Toney to fight Mike Sheppard on May 13

Former three division world champion James “Lights Out” Toney (76-10-3, 46 KOs) will be fighting next month in a 12 round fight against 41-year-old journeyman Mike Sheppard (24-20-2, 10 Kos) on May 13 at the Convocation Center of Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The 48-year-old Toney and Sheppard will be fighting for the vacant World Boxing Foundation heavyweight title.

It’ll be good to see Toney back inside the ring after a 2-year layoff. The last time Toney fought was in August 2015 in losing a 10 round decision to Charles Ellis. In Toney’s fight before that, he was beaten by journeyman Jason Gavern by a 3 round majority decision. The last time Toney won a fight was in November 2013 in beating Matt Legg by a 3 round decision. Toney has lost 4 out of his last 7 fights.

The real question is how much does Toney have left in the tank at 48? He didn’t look so good in his last 2 fights. It’s a lot to ask for Toney to come off of a 2-year layoff to fight a full 12 round fight. It’s been 4 years since Toney fought a 12 round fight in losing to Lucas “Big Daddy” Browne in April 2013.

Toney’s career has been an up and down affair through the years. He started out at middleweight 1988, and fought the likes of Roy Jones Jr., Reggie Johnson, Mike McCallum, Michael Nunn, Merqui Sosa, Doug DeWitt, Iran Barley, Tim Littles, Charles Williams, Montell Griffin, Vassily Jirov, Evander Holyfield, John Ruiz, Hasim Rahman, Samuel Peter, Fres Oquendo, Denis Lebedev and Lucas Browne.

Toney has fought a lot of good fighters, and beaten most of them. It wasn’t until late in Toney’s career where he started to lose a lot, which is understandable given his age, his weight and the fact that he had moved up to the heavyweight division. There are few fighters in his era that would even consider doing what Toney did in moving up all the way from 160 to fight at heavyweight and find success.

Sheppard is coming off of a 1st round knockout loss to Sergey Kuzman last October. It’s been2 yeas since Sheppard last won a fight, and that was his win over Thomas Hanshaw in 2015. Sheppard has been in with a lot of notable fighters too in his 20-year pro career. He’s fought Antonio Tarver, China Smith, Vinny Maddalone, Denis Boytsov, Gerald Washington, Nicolai Firtha, and Andrzej Wawrzyk.

Also on the Toney-Sheppard card is former junior middleweight world champion Cornelius “K9” Bundrage in age.