Evgeny Gradovich has reportedly pulled out of his scheduled April 23 title fight against Nonito "The Filipino Flash" Donaire, citing an upcoming ten round bout on January 9 against Jesus Galicia in Valencia, Spain and his desire to first test the waters at 122 pounds after dropping down from the featherweight division. The New Standard learned that Hungarys Zsolt Bedak has stepped in as a replacement for Gradovich but the fight hasn't been finalized as yet with the possibility that Gradovich may reconsider his decision and face Donaire. . Bedak has a record of 25-1 with 8 knockouts and is coming off a ten round unanimous decision over Nick Otieno of Kenya last September 19 Bedak lost by a 10th round TKO in a battle for the WBO title against Puerto Ricos Wilfredo Vazquez Jr who subsequently lost to Donaire by a split decision in February 2012 at the Alamadome in San Antonio, Texas. Prior to the title fight Bedak scored a 7th round knockout over Ramie Laput of the Philippines in a WBO Intercontinental title fight in Austria. His record suggests that Bedak may be a good boxer but like Gradovich lacks the power to trouble a fighter of the quality of Donaire who possesses a lethal left hook. The 32 year old Bedak was a member of the Hungarian Olympic team in Athens in 2004 when hw fought as a bantamweight and scored a big win over Abner Mares. He was also WBO European super bantamweight champion from 2009 to 2014 and previously held the WBO Intercontinental title in 2009.
I don't blame him. People jump divisions without warm up matches and get destroyed. Might as well safely see if you can have the same power or if you are going to have to become more dependent on stamina to carry your diminished power.
"Mr. Left Hook" stands next to no chance here, despite the steady decline of Donaire with age catching up to him and exacerbated with the climb up in weight. In his one step up to anywhere near Donaire's class, Bedák was smacked around by WV2.
Bedak put on a decent show against Vazquez Jr and showed a great heart, but his jaw was broken in the 5th round and from then on it became a beatdown. He is a good boxer.
Man, I would love that. Pagara/Donaire would be explosive, but I think Donaire would KO him. Pagara is reckless as hell. I haven't seen him in forever, though. I wonder if he improved any since I last saw him.
