By Vladimir S. — EBU heavyweight champion Alexander Dimitrenko (30-1, 20 KO’s) defends his European Boxing Union title against one-time heavyweight title challenger Alberto Sosnowski (46-3-1, 28 KO’s) at the Sport and Congress Center, Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. This will be the first title defense for the 28-year-old Dimitrenko, who is hoping that a victory will lead to a title fight against one of the Klitschko brothers in the near future. Dimitrenko is currently ranked #8 WBA, #8 WBO and #9 IBF.
At 6’7” 250 pounds, Dimitrenko will have a considerable size advantage over the 6’2 ½” 225 pound Sosnowski. However, as we’ve seen in Dimitrenko’s loss to 6’2” Eddie Chambers last year in July, being the bigger fighter doesn’t necessarily translate to victory. Dimitrenko was hurt in the 10th round and took heavy punishment in defeat. Dimitrenko took a year off from boxing and returned to his old winning form in defeating Yaroslav Zavorotnyy by a 5th round stoppage in July to capture the vacant EBU heavyweight title..
Dimitrenko has the better skills compared to Sosnowski. Indeed, Dimitrenko is one of the most athletic heavyweights in the division, and is fast on his feet despite being so large. He’s got the ability to fight effectively both on the outside and the inside. In his loss to Chambers, Dimitrenko made the mistake of not wrapping up Chambers on the inside. Instead of grabbing him in a clinch, Dimitrenko allowed Chambers to work in close while Dimitreko just covered up. It was a case of poor training, because this is something that should have been easily fixed in between rounds during the fight.
For Dimitrenko to beat Sosnowski on Saturday night, Dimitrenko is going to have to shut him down when he comes in close looking to land his bombs. Although Dimitrenko has great inside fighting ability, he doesn’t possess big power and he can be hurt. He’s got to stay on the move, use his jab, hook with his left and fire off his rights. When Dimitrenko does stop, he needs to keep punching until Sosnowski gets in close. At that point Dimitrenko has to tie him up. Sosnowski will no doubt have studied Dimitrenko’s defeat to Chambers and will be looking to get inside on Dimitrenko to see if he can trouble him on the inside. It will be up to Dimitrenko to fight smart and learn from the mistakes he made in the Chambers fight.
Dimitrenko should win this fight on talent alone. He’s got a lot of ability when he’s fighting smart and using his size. However, he has to keep Sosnowski on the outside because the Polish heavyweight has good power and he’s capable of taking Dimitrenko out if he lands something big.
In other fights on the loaded card:
Matt Zegan vs. Eduard Trojanovskij
Juan Carlos Gomez vs. Harold Sconiers
Manuel Charr vs. Zack Page
Rakhim Chakhkiev vs. Lukasz Rusiewicz
Christian Hammer vs. Taras Bydenko