SEBASTIEN DEMERS vs DIONISIO MIRANDA

Sebastien Demers went into his middleweight title fight against Arthur Abraham with a lot of confidence, did very well for two rounds but got caught and stopped in he third. He has come back with five wins in a row, and feels he is ready for another world-class type of fight. On Friday he was to have faced the Colombian Fulgencio Zuniga — in what I thought would have been too tough an assignment — on Friday Night Fights. Zuniga is now out of the fight, but in his place comes another Colombian, Dionisio Miranda, who is not as experienced or formidable as his fellow-countryman but who nonetheless is a dangerous fighter.

Demers, at home in Montreal, is the favourite but he will need to be at his best. Miranda can punch, as he demonstrated in his last fight when he wobbled the unbeaten prospect Peter Quillin — with 18 KOs in 19 wins his “Mister Nocaut” nickname is appropriate.

Miranda can be outboxed, though — when Quillin used the jab and hit and moved he was winning the rounds. On Friday, I think that it is imperative that Demers boxes, moves and doesn’t stay in front of his man too long.

Abraham was too much for him — Demers, as it turned out, wasn’t ready for this type of fight and he accepts it. “He’s done very well since then,” Demers’s promoter, Yvon Michel, said from Montreal this week. “He’s got a great trainer in Howard Grant, he knows what it takes to be fighting at the world championship level and he’s worked very hard at closing the gap.”

I consider Demers to be far more talented than Miranda, but I feel that he is in the sort of bout in which he will need to box a steady, near-perfect fight. Demers is not a seriously hard puncher — eight of his last wins were on points — but sometimes he gets a bit carried away and starts letting his hands go rather recklessly. If he does this against Miranda it could get him into trouble.

Twelve rounds is a long way to go without getting hit flush, but Miranda seemed to fade in the last three rounds of the fight with Quillin after hurting his opponent in the seventh. Miranda’s knockout wins back in Colombia were over what looked like weak opposition. His only chance on Friday, I feel, is the so-called puncher’s chance. The chance is there, though.

I am expecting Demers to box in a disciplined way and pile up enough points with his jab and fast combinations to win a fairly wide decision, but I do feel that for the first six or seven rounds he will have to be particularly alert and I do not think his corner will breathe easily until the fight is over.