Murat Georgievich Gassiev vs. Einar Otto Vallin & Fatih Keles vs. Khuseyn Baysangurov RBR.

Reasons for concern for Gassiev

He's been super inactive having just 4 fights in 5 years and two of them ended in round 1, one in round 2, and the other in round 4

He's been fighting binmen and journeymen in all those fights and hasn't fought anyone even remotely world class in five years

He's been injury-ravaged and had to undergo multiple surgeries, including one on his shoulder

He's barely thrown any left hooks in any of those fights

His only loss is to a southpaw mover

Wallin will try to follow the blueprint albeit he's a bootleg version of Usyk. That being said, he is obviously a lot bigger than Usyk

So stylistically it's a bad opponent to be facing for your first fight at the world level in five years given all the above

And the weight is a concern too. 216 is 22lbs lighter than he came in for his last fight and whilst that would be a very good weight for Uysk whose main assets up at HW are speed, movement and skills Gassiev's assets have always been power, strength, and aggression albeit he did morph into a boxer against Dorticos to everyone's surprise and to great effect too.

I don't think Wallin could take too many flush shots from the much heavier Gassiev we've seen up at HW and even though he looked bloated they were still thrown with speed and snap

I still favour him to win but 225lbs would've been an ideal weight for this fight IMO

216 must be close to what he was coming in down at CW but that version back then was a better, healthier and much more active version

 

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