SEBASTIAN ZBIK vs EMANUELE DELLA ROSA

Unbeaten Sebastian Zbik barely scraped home when winning the WBC’s interim middleweight title by outpointing Italy’s Domenico Spada in his last fight. On Saturday he defends against Spada’s stablemate, Emanuele Della Rosa, on the big show in Germany.

Della Rosa is unbeaten but considered less-talented than Spada. He is a smart businessman outside the ring, running three bakeries in partnership with his brother, Italian-based journalist Peter Lerner tells me. It seems that Della Rosa was once a bit of a roughhouse type of fighter but has lately been paying much more attention to technique. He boxed as a welter and junior middle for most of his career but weighed 161 pounds for his last fight and he certainly looked in rock-hard, muscular shape in the weigh-in photos. Lerner tells me that Della Rosa has been sparring with Spada for this fight, with his gym mate giving him advice on how to fight Zbik.

I somehow doubt that Spada’s tips will guide Della Rosa to victory. There seems to be a big difference in class in this fight. The taller Zbik was an international championship-level boxer as an amateur and he, too, is undefeated although he has had more fights than Della Rosa and faced a higher calibre of opponent.

Zbik is not considered to be much of a puncher (just 10 stoppage wins in 27 bouts), so this fight seems to have “distance” written all over it. It all depends, though, how the seemingly wide gap in talent works out. I think there is a slight chance of Zbik getting a late-rounds stoppage if he can keep hitting the target, while at the back of my mind I have a picture of a frustrated Della Rosa resorting to rough stuff and maybe getting himself disqualified — DQs are rare in world title fights these days, but stranger things have happened.