Dillian Whyte vs. Einar Otto Vallin

Idk, haven't seen Vallin's last couple of comeback fights since Fury took his zero. Let me have a gander at those before appraising this match-up, as he's the real variable here (I've seen and know plenty of Whyte).

 

...found the Breazeale schooling but the full Kauffman fight appears to not be anywhere online, just highlights.

Anyway, yeah, this could be a banana peel (or rather, a Swedish meatball rolling off a not-quite-level table and waiting for passersby on the slick IKEA cafeteria floor ) for Whyte. My only question is how is Vallin's chin, do we know? I read he is yet to ever be dropped in the pros? Although he was kayoed by Mihai Nistor in the am's...

 

No indeed. I'd say on a scale of downy goose feather like Cousin Hughie to could put a rhinoceros in a coma like his archival Deontay, dead average would be the best descriptor for the Gypsy King's punching power.

I've been trying to find footage of the amateur KO loss to Nistor. On paper that isn't a huge shame, as the Romanian can whack, but getting kayoed with headgear is getting kayoed with headgear. Unless it was a chintzy RSC (and I've never heard any indication that is was) that isn't a great look and puts a hard cap on just how iron a chin can be said to be.

You super sure about that?

Do you think Otto is his first name as well?

Yes that struck me watching him against Breazeale and Kauffman. He's a weird mix of stiff and robotic in the stereotypical manner associated with European boxers yet also paradoxically very elusive and difficult to hit much clean or in concatenation.

 

Dmitry Salita thinks Vallin stops Whyte late.

 

Oh weird! You know what it was? I searched for the Breazeale match first, and that wasn't on YT. The only long hits for that were a video game simulation and some fan reactions...so I jumped over to Dailymotion and found it there, but there was bupkiss for the Kauffman fight on DM.

The weird thing is though, I saw an eight minute highlight reel of it on YT, which came up in the first page of Google results. Either the full one didn't show alongside it for some reason, or I'm going blind.

Anyway, that eight minutes was plenty, gave me the gist. If there had been any moments of high drama, Kauffman buzzing him or anything, it surely would have come to my attention, but in the absence of reading anything on the contrary my assumption is that eight minutes (which is almost half as long as the fight went anyway) tells it all.

 

Here's my official prediction: Vallin taking a 117-111ish decision, or deserving to (based on a majority of fan and press row scoring and gets robbed) feels 85% likely, but that is provided that Whyte doesn't catch him with a fight-changing looping bomb, which given Vallin's rigidity* can't be ruled out. Zero knockdowns, Vallin outboxes him clean.

*(his defensive footwork is great, but head movement is almost nonexistent, with his neck like a slab of rebar oftimes never bending throughout a round; he did utilize some ducking in the pocket to slip My Time, but the American is at least twice as slow as Whyte)