ISAAC CHILEMBA vs MICHAEL BOLLING

Two up-and-coming 168-pounders meet in a fascinating 12-round fight in South Africa on Saturday when Isaac Chilemba, considered one of the country’s brightest prospects (although born in the southeast African country of Malawi) meets an unbeaten Australian, Michael Bolling, for the vacant IBO title.

This is one of a number of interesting fights lately in which the sportsbooks have not offered a wagering line. Readers have expressed their disappointment to me at being denied wagering opportunities, but the bright side is that in some cases they might have been denied the opportunity to lose money. (Just one sportsbook to my knowledge dared to put up a line on last weekend’s heavyweight bout between Lance Whitaker and Alexander Fedosov, for instance, and they probably did well, because it looked to me that all the money came in on the Russian prospect who scored a knockdown but lost a split decision.)

Chilemba against Bolling is one of those fights in which a line has not been made available, and in fairness to the oddsmakers there have been several of these tricky-to-gauge bouts in recent weeks, where it is difficult to form a strong opinion about the contest.

Bolling is a southpaw and a hard hitter, while Chilemba is considered to be a talented boxer, one of those naturally gifted types.

Chilemba comes into the bout as a replacement for Tommy Oosthuizen, an undefeated southpaw who apparently needed stitches after suffering cuts to his face in a car accident.

Bolling was preparing to meet a fellow-southpaw in Oosthuizen and now, at short notice, is meeting an orthodox-style boxer.

Chilemba, though, has been boxing as a light-heavy and will presumably have had to lose weight in a short space of time, which is never a good thing.

Bolling looked very good in his last fight when he broke down and stopped Victor Oganov in eight rounds, but he was meeting a stocky slugger who was right in front of him and extremely available to being hit. Chilemba is a taller boxer, faster and more skilled than the straight-ahead Oganov. He has won easily on points in three consecutive 12-rounders, one against an undefeated opponent, although I gather that Chilemba has at times been disappointing, with a sense among observers that he could have done a bit more.

I would have gone for Chilemba in this fight but one cannot be sure how he will be affected by losing weight; I am informed that he looked huge for a super middleweight and now here he is, after two fights at light-heavy, dropping down to 168 pounds again and seemingly without much time in which to do it, to save the show.

Although Bolling is inexperienced at top level, I like what little I have seen of him. There is too much guesswork involved (for me anyway) to have anything approaching a solid feeling about a fight such as this, but my sneaking feeling is that the unbeaten and confident young Australian can win in what I would regard as an upset.