Comments Thread For: Denis Shafikov Targets Juan Manuel Marquez Showdown

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

Upon entering the high waters of the light welterweight division, Mexican superstar Juan Manuel Marquez (54-6-1, 39 KOs) got to experience a battle with an Eastern European veteran. In April, Marquez, who recently celebrated his 39th birthday, acquired the vacant WBO-interim junior welterweigh title by delivering a sound boxing lesson to a skilled Ukrainian technician, Sergey Fedchenko (30-2, 13 KOs). The latter is just one-fifth of a huge ex-Soviet presence in this particular weight class, which also consists of a trio of undefeated Russian prospects - Denis Shafikov and Khabib Allakhverdiev (17-0, 8 KOs) and Ukrainian stylist Victor Postol (19-0, 9 KOs), as well as battle-tested slugger Ruslan Provodnikov (22-1, 15 KOs). [Click Here To Read More]

[ddangerous]

bet JMM actually takes this fight as yet another "tune up" for Pacman.

[onechance87]

Marquez vs provkin would be cool.

[Clegg]

I don't know most of the guys mentioned in the article, but Provodnikov is one of the guys I'd like to see get a title shot, simply because he's entertaining and would give a good account of himself.

[macman]

Be very surprised if this one comes off - Shafikov is a very skilled technician with a fast mobile style, & is very hard to hit clean with more than one punch.
He has a good workrate & throws quite a lot of punches, but throws them quickly from a variety of angles & then is gone.

Marquez at this stage of career would have a lot of trouble in trying to pin Shafikov down, & has a real risk of losing to guy who is completely unknown in the US.


See Marquez sticking to well-known, older fighters or much less mobile fighters than Shafikov, especially after what turned out to be a very difficult fight against Fedchenko, who is a much more limited fighter than Shafikov.

In the magnificent twilight of his career Marquez deserves to pick & choose, & has always looked at his best against brawlers. Provodnikov or maybe even Garcia would be very entertaining matchups.

[4Corners]

If Marquez doesn't get the 4th Pac fight, no way should he be fighting these guys.

He should be fighting someone like Peterson, Judah, Berto, Guerrero, or hell even Broner.

[BattleAxePurist]

Why not Shafikov v Provodnikov in an all russian affair

Shafikov is actually pretty good

Or Herrera/Dallas/Mayfield anyone of those and put it on FNF early in 2013

[King_]

If Marquez doesn't get the 4th Pac fight, no way should he be fighting these guys.

He should be fighting someone like Peterson, Judah, Berto, Guerrero, or hell even Broner.

Why? Berto.....Judah......why have the same old recycled names? Let him fight some undefeated fighters, Shafikov, Provodinkov and Allakherdiev, are all ranked fighters and could become major players in the division, if somebody actually fights them. We already know what Judah has, we already know what Berto has.....let some other fighters prove themselves......

[Mikhnienko]

Shafikov is a joy to watch and iv been hoping that he will get a big fight. Doesn't get any bigger than this. Very dangerous but i want to see it.

[ShoulderRoll]

Denis Shafikov isn't even rated by the WBO, why would Marquez defend that belt against him? Not to mention that he brings nothing to the table financially compared to JMM's other options.

Shafikov should realistically be looking at someone like Dierry Jean who is ranked ahead of him in both the WBC and IBF rankings.