AMIN ASIKAINEN vs KHOREN GEVOR

On paper, one of the most closely matched fights you could expect to see takes place in Finland on Friday when Finnish veteran Amin Asikainen meets Khoren Gevor, the German-domiciled Armenian, for the vacant European middleweight title.

This is one of those fights — and they come along once in a while — when I struggle to find a clear advantage for either man. Just when I think I have found a clue as to the likely winner, I uncover a reason why the other man might win.

Home advantage is with Asikainen, the former champion. That’s a nice advantage to have. At almost 6ft, he is the taller man. That helps, too.

Gevor, though, is a southpaw, his skills have been sharpened by one of the top European trainers, Fritz Sdunek, and at 29 he is three years the younger man.

The closest to what could be called a big, defining victory by either boxer was scored by Asikainen, when he stopped Sebastian Sylvester in the eighth round in Germany. In a rematch, though, he was stopped in the 11th round by the German fighter.

Gevor’s finest performance came when he challenged Arthur Abraham for the IBF title 14 months ago. Although Gevor was knocked out in the 11th round, he fought with great bravery and got off to a strong start, winning two of the first four rounds on all three judges’ cards before being ground down by Abraham’s superior talent, experience and firepower.

The knockout was brutal, a left hook sending Gevor down as if all the life force had drained out of him. Since then he has had two fights against opposition that could best be described as undemanding, and Gevor won these fights easily.

Sometimes, the experience of being in a big fight, even if it ends in defeat, can bring a fighter to another level as long as he has been competitive and made his mark in the contest. The boxer learns a lot about himself. When things get tough in a fight, he knows that he has been there before and that he has it in him to fight through the rocky moments. Gevor was ultimately crushed by Abraham, but he was rallying almost to the very end: he just wouldn’t admit defeat.

The downside of a fight such as this, of course, is that a brutal, draining battle ending in a KO defeat can take something out of a boxer.

Gevor has not been tested since losing to Abraham. We will not know for sure until Friday whether that fight had a positive or an adverse effect on Gevor.

Asikainen also knows what it is like to be stopped in a long, tough fight, and he was just about level on the scorecards against Sylvester in the rematch when he got dropped by a right hand in the 11th. I thought that Asikainen was fading, though. He suffered a flash knockdown in the seventh and it looked as if he had been hurt in the 10th. That was Asikainen’s only loss in 26 fights, though, and he has since won four bouts.

Perhaps Asikainen learned something from the loss to Sylvester. I thought he was getting frustrated when Sylvester used the ring in a moving, counter-punching style, and the Finn was leaving himself open when he attacked.

There are then, I think, big question marks hovering over both Asikainen and Gevor.

Asikainen has more experience, which includes a long amateur career at a high level: he boxed in three consecutive world championships, in Budapest, Houston and Belfast, although never getting to the medal round. Gevor looks the fresher fighter, assuming that he did not leave something of himself in the ring when he lost to Abraham.

I think Gevor is probably the more talented of the two boxers and he looks more durable than Asikainen. Gevor stood up to some big shots from Abraham, and the only other time he got stopped was when he suffered a cut eye against Lukas Konecny. I would say that Asikainen is the harder hitter, although when he stopped Yory Boy Campas it looked a hasty intervention by the referee, with the Mexican veteran, who has been in so many wars, smiling as if in disbelief when Asikainen’s hand was raised.

Still, Asikainen is quite a good hitter. He stopped Sylvester in their first fight and he seemed to drop him with a left hook in the rematch although the referee ruled a slip, and the Finnish boxer did stagger Campas.

It seems unlikely, though, that Asikainen hits hard enough to stop Gevor. This fight looks likely to go the full 12 rounds.

Gevor’s southpaw stance and busy style could give Asikainen problems. I don’t think that Asikainen has met a southpaw in the professionals. Asikainen, though, looks the bigger man, with a bit more firepower, and his wins were, I believe, over a slightly higher level than the fighters that Gevor has defeated.

I fear that Asikainen’s chin might be quite suspect, but Gevor is considered more of a technician than a terrifically hard hitter. Asikainen is physically strong and a solid if unspectacular European-level fighter; Gevor is as game as they come and a sound boxer-fighter who, again, seems just a bit short of world top-10 class.

It is guaranteed that a Universum-promoted fighter such as Gevor will be in impeccable condition, but part of Asikainen’s preparation was at a special training camp in Tenerife in the Canary Islands, where the regimen included what his camp calls “merciless running in the mountains”, so you know he has gone the extra mile (in every sense) in his training to give himself the best possible chance of winning.

Each man has expressed his respect for the other, but Fritz Sduenk has said in interviews that Gevor will not only win but will stop Asikainen.

This looks, to me, a coin-flip type of fight. If the venue was in Gevor’s adopted hometown of Hamburg instead of in Helsinki I would pick him to win, but Asikainen could be inspired by an anticipated 10,000 Finnish crowd in what is the biggest fight in the Nordic nation since, at a guess, the light-heavyweight Pekka Kokkonen fought the American contender Eddie Cotton in 1962, just a year after Cotton’s split decision defeat against master boxer Harold Johnson. Kokkonen lost to Cotton, but I think that Asikainen can send the fans home happy by digging down and landing the harder punches to take a narrow decision. This is a far-from confident pick, though. The oddsmakers established Asikainen as something like a -160 favourite some weeks ago and the line has hardly shifted, showing that the players are unsure what to make of this fight, and my own odds of roughly even-money show a similar lack of certitude.