Damn I didn’t realise Gvozdyk was 37 I thought he was like early-mid 30s. That definitely drops his odds in my mind, though he looked pretty good against Bolotniks and in his last fight
If Gvozdyk has anything left in the tank he will put a hole through Benavidez. The key being IF. Gvozdyk used to be tremendous. Not sure how he's looking lately.
You’re not alone. The only thing that concerns me is how close to his best form he actually. No doubt he’ll be putting everything into this training camp though.
When these kinds of match-up happens, we always think that the old veteran can pull off a win against a talent fighter in his prime. In the majority of the cases, prime fighter usually wins. They keyword here is "prime". I think Benevidez is going to win this comfortably. Gvozdyk is too old and too inactive. And let's not forget that beating he took from Beterbiev. While he has shown signs of his prime in the last few fights, they're against low level competition. He's no longer the same fighter who fought against Stevenson or Beterbiev. He will likely put up a valiant effort, but he's not going to win the fight.
Would it really be a big upset? I wouldn't be surprised if Gvozdyk wins. What are the odds at the moment?
We're talking three more rounds than Plant won on the cards to get a majority decision. That doesn't sound like much of a stretch to me. The question is of course how much he has left, but if he's anything close to what he was Benavidez has his job cut out for him.
last time i saw gvodzyk, he looked shot to me. don't remember what fight it was, but that was the impression i got from seeing him. if that guy shows up, david is going to brutally stop him.
Would be very exciting if Gvozdyk got the W, but I think he's too old unfortunately. And even though Benavidez hasn't fought at LHW he HAS fought at over 190lbs before. He's big even for LHW let alone SMW. Prime Gvozdyk was better P4P than the best we've seen of Benavidez but not SO much better that I'd favour him even with the decline.
Yeah... that one. You know how there's a lot of guys in the sport that get off to a rocky start and learn on the job, who have quite deceptive records, like say... Orlando Salido and Miguel Roman? Bolotniks is one of those guys. He started out with poor management and poor training, picked up a few losses at LHW. Then idiotically chose to move up 25 pounds to Cruiserweight. Although he initially had some success, he was derailed by his loss to Micki Nielsen, which was unfortunately bull****, it was a hometown decision. He then picked up a KO loss to Mchunu, probably one of the most underrated Cruisers of the last 20 years. So no big deal there. Then he decided to drop back down to LHW, refocus... got a better team around him, and he went on a hell of a run, taking the 0's of Sergey Ekimov, Steven Ward and Hrvoje Sep, and picking up impressive Euro level wins against Hosea Burton and Serge Michel. He earned his shot against Buatsi, it wasn't handed to him. Then he proceeded to give Buatsi his second toughest fight to date after Craig Richards, arguably winning between 3 and 4 rounds off of him. So yeah... I have a hard time seeing David Lemieux, who looked like warmed over distended assmeat for his entire run at 168, including getting awarded a bit of a gift against featherfisted Maksym Bursak, who dropped him twice, on his way to losing a SD, being able to compete with a rugged much bigger Light Heavyweight. Andrade struggled mightily with a much smaller Jack Culcay at 154, a guy with a similar style to Bolotniks. He didn't perform all that well against Demond Nicholson in his 168 debut, and got dropped in the process. Bolotniks at 175 steamrolls him with relative ease. Who knows how well Plant would do at 175, but I doubt his gas tank would hold up all that well carrying around 7 pounds more muscle, and I doubt his average power would carry up all that well either. At best he puts in an Uzcategui like performance in against him, at worst he gets grinded down and stopped late. As far as Kyrone Davis is concerned.... please. So yeah, I stand by my assessment. Now.. do either of you have a valid argument as to why 4 guys who've never performed at 175 would easily deal with a much larger relentless pressure fighting tank of a LHW?
@CST80 I'm forming my opinion on Bolotniks only on how he looked against the Nail. And he looked like ****. He fought with no apparent world class talent or any self-belief. He did not give a good account of himself at all and Gvozdyk hardly broke a sweat. If you want to argue that Bolotniks is a world class fighter whom the Nail simply made to look very poor, okay. I just don't agree. For an old fighter who was out for several years after an announced retirement, I don't think an opponent like that has prepared him well for Benavidez. He hasn't been more than 6 rounds since 2019. For his part, Benavidez is much younger and was not out for 3.5 years. He has been fighting in main events against champion level guys, altho I agree with you that the jump to 175 is interesting. Right now I'm seeing Benavidez at -650 which even I think is too high. But he's rightfully the favorite.
Here... judge for yourself, this is what Bolotniks usually looks like. Gvozdyk made him look like ****, which to me is a sign that Gvozdyk still has a lot left. This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected
Yep and in recent times Teddy hasn't been making outlandish predictions he is good at reading fights and has been on the money on his podcast in recent years. In the past he has picked against his former charges but this time he is quietly confident that Gvozdyk will get the job done. I will be having a bet on the Nail for sure.
