14.02.07 – By Paul McCreath: With WBO champion Shannon Briggs being forced to pull out of his March 10th title defense against Sultan Ibragimov due to illness, the scramble is, no doubt, on to find a replacement opponent for Ibragimov. Sultan would still like to fight against someone. HBO would probably prefer to find one fighter as a replacement instead of two, so who is likely to face Ibragimov now? Let’s look at the prerequisites first.
1.) HBO will need a name opponent for Sultan who can sell some tickets, lots of tickets.Possibly their best bet is for an interim title fight, the closest thing they can offer to the original fight.
2.) The WBO will probably require that the fighter be in their top 15.
3.) Ibragimov and his team would have to find the fighter acceptable, in other words likely beatable.
Okay, now lets look at the WBO top 15 and assess the likelihood of each fighter being picked.
1.) is Sultan himself.
2.) Sam Peter has bigger fish to fry at the moment and would not appeal to Ibragimov anyway although HBO I’m sure would be happy.
3.) Chagaev is already lined up to meet Valuev.
4.) Dimitrenko in unknown in America so would have little appeal to HBO.
5.) Tony Thompson is a pretty fair fighter but not really a name. He is also fighting Timor Ibragimov this weekend. No luck there.
6.) Krasniqi has not fought since September of 05 when he was KO’d by Brewster. Pretty hard to sell him.
7.) Liahovich – Too risky for Ibragimov.
8.) Brewster. HBO would love either of these two but Ibragimov would not like the idea of taking a greater risk than Briggs. They are likely not yet available anyway.
9.) Hasim Rahman is a possibility. He is a well known name and would likely look beatable to Sultan. That’s a maybe.
10.) Matt Skelton is injured at the moment.
11.) Jameel McCline-same again.
12.) Audley Harrison. Not a chance. If Dominic Guinn can beat him, forget it.
13.) Evander Holyfield. I don’t think HBO would dare.
14.) Vlad Virchis is unknown in America. As European champ it might work in Europe but definitely not in New York.
15.) Calvin Brock. That thumping he took from Wlad might make this a hard sell, too, but we could do worse. At least he is young. Well, that’s it and there is not much to choose from.
If we could look outside the WBO top 15, we might be able to scrape up another two or three fighters. Davarryl Williamson has said he wants the fight but who wants him? Old, Oliver McCall is likely available, but he is ancient. Chris Byrd? They couldn’t sell him when he was champ so no chance now. James Toney and John Ruiz are at least recognizable names, but neither one would have much appeal now. The only other one I can think of would be Fast Eddie Chambers, but he is relatively unknown and maybe a bit dangerous, too.
In my opinion, if available, Rahman or Brock would be the best choice. Neither one is exactly what we would like to see in a title bout but are probably as good as we can do on short notice. This being boxing, it will probably turn out to be someone else.