February 2025 boxing predictions

The January Report

• Opetaia needs better opposition. His promoter desperately wants to see him get slaughtered at heavyweight but that's because his promoter is one of the worst matchmakers in modern boxing history. The Zurdo fight makes much more sense.
  • Prediction: Opetaia by KO/TKO in rounds 7-9
  • Result: Opetaia by KO 4
• I'd be way more interested in Inoue-Davis at 135 than the much-teased Canelo-Crawford fight. Some weaboos were amazed with how the sound of Inoue's punches but given how still the arena was it was hardly surprising.
  • Prediction: Inoue by KO/TKO in the middle rounds
  • Result: Inoue by KO 4

Two out of two called correctedly but these fights were only ever going to end one way.

February Schedule

Feb. 1st - Brandon Figueroa vs. Stephen Fulton, WBC @ 126lbs

Fulton is not what you would call a game fighter. I know he won the first fight but call me a detractor, he should've won it more clearly. Figueroa doesn't exactly impress either but he has chutzpah and heavier hands. Fulton's last performance didn't inspire confidence, as he won a close decision after being knocked down by a fighter who Figueroa had already knocked out. You can't help but wonder if the knockout loss to Inoue has taken its toll.

Prediction: Figueroa by knockout in the first half of the fight.

Feb. 14th - Denys Berinchyk vs. Keyshawn Davis, WBO @ 135lbs

Berinchyk (Olympic silver medallist 2012) will be celebrating his 37th birthday in a few months time, whereas Davis (Olympic silver medallist 2021) will be turning 26 at the end of this month. The boxing script under normal circumstances is that Davis wins and then meets Andy Cruz (the Cuban who denied him Olympic gold, now 5-0, 2 KOs) in the pro ring. Unfortunately, Cruz is signed with Matchroom's Edward Hearn so don't hold your breath for that fight happening anytime soon. Davis just has to be more active than Navarrete was in Berinchyk's last fight.

Prediction: Davis by KO/TKO in rounds 10-12

Feb. 22nd - Shakur Stevenson vs. Floyd Schofield, WBC @ 135lbs

It turns out that begging on social media does make fights happen. Schofield is going to do his best to attack Stevenson's body and while some shots will undoubtedly get through, Stevenson will almost certainly pick off Schofield and cruise to a decision. I hope I'm wrong though.

Prediction: Stevenson by unanimous decision

Feb. 22nd - Carlos Adames vs. Hamzah Sheeraz, WBC @ 160lbs

After going the distance in 4 of his first 6 fights, the 25 year old Sheeraz has been on 15-fight knockout streak going back 6 years. Now fighting for his first world title, he faces the tough and capable Dominican Carlos Adames. As the WBO's no. 1 contender, Sheeraz did have the option of facing Janibek Alimkhanuly but his team clearly believe that Adames is a less dangerous and more winnable fight. I think it'll end up being more of a boxing match than a fight with neither fighter fully committing to forward movement but it's not out of the question that Sheeraz gets caught.

Prediction: Adames by unanimous decision

Feb. 22nd - Daniel Dubois vs. Joseph Parker, IBF @ heavyweight

Funniest quote of the year so far? "I've got to be better than [Joseph Parker] in every way. He's a man with two arms and two legs, just like me." Like any good heavyweight contest, this is one I could easily see going either way. Parker did effectively smother Deontay Wilder's attacks but went on to get dropped twice by Zhilei Zhang. Dubois has been having a strong run but it's fair to question if his consistency will hold up. My first draft did lean towards Dubois but then I saw that Carl Froch picked him too, so now I wholeheartedly expect Parker to win.

Prediction: Parker by KO/TKO in the second half of the fight

Feb. 22nd - Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol, UNDISPUTED @ 175lbs

I thought the first fight was the robbery of the year. Bivol had an effective guard, better foot movement, better head movement, and landed the cleaner punches and combinations throughout the fight as well. Even without prompting Beterbiev's first words in the post-fight interview were critical of his own performance. Will he be better? Could he win by knockout this time? Given his age, his enervated performance, and the expectation that the judges will pick the 'right' winner this time, I regrettably back Bivol.

Prediction: Bivol by unanimous decision

Feb. 24th - Tsutsumi Seiya vs. Higa Daigo, WBA @ 118lbs

Higa fought a very entertaining fight against Takei Yoshiki in September where he lost a close-ish decision. But by the end of October he had unretired and was desperately seeking a rematch with Takei which did not end up happening. He now faces Tsutsumi, the man who exposed Takuma '詐欺' Inoue. Tsutsumi also fought to a 10-round draw against Higa in 2020. Both of them have a 'block punches with your face' approach that should make for an exciting but hard-to-predict fight. I'll go with Higa for the intangible reason that he'll be hungrier.

Prediction: Higa by unanimous decision

Feb. 24th - Nakatani Junto vs. David Cuellar, WBC @ 118lbs

'El General' Cuellar will be treating the people of Japan to some Mexican boxing as he fights outside of his home country for the first time. Mexican boxing was a huge influence on Japanese boxing once upon a time so there should be lots of guts on display in this one. Nakatani will be the best southpaw and the best fighter that Cuellar has ever faced. I can already see the left hook landing, it'll be a question of if Cuellar can withstand it but a loss at this stage of his career to a fighter this good would be completely understandable.

Prediction: Nakatani by KO/TKO in the second half of the fight

The champ is where?

I nearly got tricked by David Benavidez vs. David Morrell Jr., which purports itself to be for some version(s) of the light-heavyweight championship of the world. Even though just three weeks later Bivol and Beterbiev's rematch will be for the supposedly undisputed title of that division. There's just no such thing as a world champion in boxing anymore. You can have a singular player or team be crowed 'the best' in other sports but that hasn't been the case in boxing since the IBF further fractured a struggling sport in the early 1980s. There were 89 """world champions""" in 2024 and we're meant to believe that each one of those 89 belt-holders are as accomplished as the world's best basketball team, national rugby team, golfer, F1 driver, and national football team. In fact, knowing the names of boxing's 2024 world champions is actually more difficult than knowing all names of every participant in those other championship wins combined, even including unused subsitutes in those team sports and assuming there were four different major's winners in golf there still wouldn't be more than 80 names.

Ring Magazine is soliciting feedback in the form of a survey. Responses must've been slow since the prize was quickly upped from a one-year free subscription to tickets to Bivol-Beterbiev II, Eubank-Benn, and(/or?) Garcia-Romero including flights and accommodation. I gave them an honest to Jah piece of my mind but my expectation is that nothing much I or any other boxing fan has to say will be actioned. Boxing's problems are well-documented and never far from the front of anyone's mind, though shiny new things could help to distract from the undertow of aches and pains.

One of my tangents was the lack of good boxing media. Usually, a survey about a product would ask you a direct question about your views on their competitors. The closest Ring's survey did was asking about competing rankings (presumably the WBA/WBC/IBF/WBO/IBO/TBRB) and I told them nobody outside of the people making them and the people paid to follow boxing look at the rankings. Is there anybody who could tell you which number Anthony Joshua is in the world according to each rankings? I don't think even Anthony Joshua could. The same is true for most boxers, knowing the top 10 of 18 divisions multiplied by 8 rankings is a lot of names even with overlap. Compare that to four score ago when knowing the champion plus the entire top 10 of every division would come to 88 names total. If they had asked "where do you read about boxing?" I would've gladly shared that I read books, old newspaper archives, Xicana Boxing, and sometimes flick through Boxing News at the supermarket.