PAOLO VIDOZ vs MATT SKELTON

Fights don’t come much harder to break down than Friday’s European heavyweight title contest between Paolo Vidoz and Matt Skelton in Italy.

These are two veterans, Vidoz aged 38, Skelton 41. Vidoz has much more experience, having been an Olympic and world championships bronze medallist while Skelton took up boxing very late — in his mid-30s — after a career in muay Thai, kickboxing and K-1 mixed martial arts competition.

There is no question that Vidoz is much the better boxer, but his dedication has been doubted. Skelton has done remarkably well to get as far as he has, winning the British and Commonwealth titles and giving Ruslan Chagaev a good fight in a world title challenge. He is big, strong and determined, with respectable boxing ability for one of such limited experience although his main assets are willingness and willpower: he will go forward and keep punching, round after round.

Vidoz and Skelton are boxers it is easy to like on the personal level. I once interviewed Vidoz through an interpreter and he didn’t have a bad word to say about much-maligned Audley Harrison, who beat him in the 2000 Olympic semi finals. Skelton, well beaten by Chagaev in Germany, said afterwards that it was nice of people to pat him on the back and say that he fought well but he was feeling very disappointed because he had gone to Germany to win the fight, not just to put up a good performance.

Skelton hasn’t boxed since that fight, 11 months ago. Vidoz boxed for the European title in July when he lost a very close decision to Sinan Samil Sam in Turkey, a fight that was originally a draw until the verdict was changed because one judge had amended his score for the last round. Vidoz had a lot of success with his left jab against the slow, plodding Samil Sam, but he did fade a bit under pressure.

Skelton will have to keep the pressure on Vidoz and keep the punches coming if he is to have a hope of winning. If Vidoz is allowed to dictate with the left jab and get off with counter punches he can probably box his way to a narrow decision.

The boxers have a couple of opponents in common, notably the British veteran Michael Sprott.

Vidoz comfortably outpointed Sprott in 2005 and had no real problems with him.

Skelton was able to wear down Sprott and stop him in the last round in 2004 but unimpressively struggled to a decision win in the rematch last year. Skelton’s workrate was well down in this fight compared to past performances and he almost blew the decision, with a concerned cornerman, Kevin Sanders, telling him: “You’re giving these rounds away.”

I wondered in that fight if Skelton might have reached his limit and started to regress. The intensity and commitment just didn’t seem to be there.

Skelton fought better against Chagaev, even appearing to be winning the fight in the early rounds, but he took a bit of a pasting towards the end.

Vidoz, though, has had his share of disappointing nights. There was his surprising loss to journeyman Zuri Lawrence and two defeats against big but limited Vladimir Virchis, the first of these on a knockout when the Italian boxer seemed to run out of gas after four rounds and got drilled by a right uppercut in the sixth. In his rematch with the Ukrainian, Vidoz came on quite well in the later rounds but overall just didn’t fight hard enough against the less-talented but more industrious Virchis.

The knock on Vidoz throughout his career is that he has been too easy-going, that he doesn’t like to train hard.

Vidoz’s big fights have all been away from home, in Germany, where he enjoyed a degree of popularity after a game loss against Nikolai Valuev and an upset win over Timo Hoffmann, and against Samil Sam in Ankara. On Friday, he will be boxing in a major bout in his own country for the first time. I am tempted to write that he will be motivated by the occasion and will give the performance of his life. With Vidoz, though, who knows?

Skelton will give it all he’s got, but he’s 42 next month and he’s had only three fights in the past 32 months.

Something else to consider is that Skelton can be a bit of a roughhouse mauler. He was deducted a point for pulling down on Chagaev's head in the clinches. The crowd will be jeering and whistling if Skelton is too much of a brawler against the local fighter, and if the French referee feels obliged to instruct the judges take a point or two away from Skelton it could make all the difference on the scorecards.

Then there is that matter of a British boxer actually getting a getting a decision over an Italian in a European title bout in Italy. I am not sure if it has ever happened, although Johnny Nelson outscored Vincenzo Cantatore in a WBO title fight.

The classy Scottish boxer Walter McGowan was considered very unlucky to have to settle for a draw against Tommaso Galli in a European bantam title bout in Rome while south Londoner Peter Waterman fought a draw with Emilio Marconi in a European welter title bout in the Eternal City.

When British boxers have won in Italy in European title bouts it has been by stoppage. Dave Charnley, Alan Minter, Ken Buchanan, John L. Gardner, Maurice Hope, Howard Winstone, Henry Cooper and Joe Bugner are names that come to mind when I think of British boxers who went to Italy and stopped Italian fighters in European title bouts although in Bugner’s case his opponent, Dante Cane, suffered a severe cut.

So, if historic precedent should be heeded, Skelton’s best chance on Friday will be to batter his way to a win inside the scheduled 12 rounds, but there is a first time for everything. Maybe the judges will prefer Skelton’s earnest thumping over Vidoz’s superior technique should the fight go the distance: this doesn’t figure to be the easiest fight to score.

My feeling is that the site could be all-important. With the crowd behind him and, at a guess, with just a bit more of an effort in training than has been the case in the past, I am thinking that Vidoz can just about scrape through with a win on points. Veterans Gianluca Branco and Giacobbe Fragomeni have won title fights this year — I have an inkling that Vidoz will make it three out of three for Italy’s ageing fighters.