The relevant players at heavyweight

[gingeralbino]

Denis Boytsov (BoxRec #15) just had a big win over *****ko, he is close to being a relevant player now. Lamon Brewster needs a good win to put himself back into the top ten. And Kevin Johnson is one good win away from being a top contender.

All the others are clearly below that level.

It will be interesting to see how Stefan Kretschmann does against Bakhtov next Friday, he may have some potential. I thought Alexander Ustinov might be ready to soon join the relevant players, but he was overweight and wasn't overly impressive against Michael Sprott yesterday, although he clearly won. Similarly, Odlanier Solis has the talent to be a top contender, but he keeps gaining weight.

Then there's people like Platov, Pala and Pianeta - they seem to be a bit below world class potential, but who knows, the're young and still improving. Wawrzyk and Helenius do have talent, but need another year or so to develop. In the US there's Chazz Witherspoon, Travis Walker and several others who may be there in a year or two, but they can hardly be considered relevant players now.

And of course, Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder and Tor Hamer have the potential to be major players in a couple of years.

Wasn't he supposed to fight Monte Barrett last month? What happened with that? word around belfast is that Johnson was "sent home in disgrace" cos he couldnt handle Rogan in sparring. Mind you, Breen is known for some pretty intense "training" - no holding back. Probably wasnt used to it, or it might just be a load of ****e leaked from Rogan's camp.

[Derranged_]

The winner of Chambers-Dimitrenko could well land himself a fight with Vitali Klitschko this September; I think that's why Vitali hasn't chosen an opponent yet...

[Mikhnienko]

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Here's Ustinov from his K-1 days, his weight would be around 280, he's usually around 300 lbs now. He needs to lose those 25lbs to get his handspeed back up.

Yeah i'm hopefully for Dimitrenko and Boytsov.

I wish Virchis & Ibragimov would make a comback and hope Chagaev and *****ko stay motivated to make another run.