One of this weekend's most promising, though most overlooked bouts, see's multi-time world title challenger Sakio Bika (31-5-2, 21) facing off against Mexican power puncher Marco Antonio Periban (20-0, 13) in a bout for the recently vacated WBC Super Middleweight title.
The division, one of boxing's best with the likes of Andre Ward, Carl Froch, Mikkel Kessler and Robert Stieglitz has been one of the sports most interesting over the past few years and this bout, whilst a "low level world title bout" again has the feeling of "interesting" about it.
Of the two men Bika is by far the more well known fighter. In a 38 fight career he has faced a genuine who's who including (but by no means limited to) Sam Soliman (twice), Markus Bayer, Joe Calzaghe, Lucien Bute, Peter Manfredo Jr and Andre Ward. Although he's only beaten Soliman and Manfredo from that list no one has had an easy night with him (with Ward having one of his toughest fights against him).
The reason no one has an easy night with Bika is because he's teak tough, very wild, throws punches from bizarre angles and doesn't mind being dirty. He's crude, clumsy, hard hitting and built like a rock. In fact the only time I remember him ever being down was when Jaidon Codrington dropped him in an excellent opening round in the final of "The Contender" season 3.
Born in Cameroon though based in Australia, Bika is a man who really should be avoided by fighters wanting to make a name for themselves. He has impressively won 9 of his last 11 bouts and of 6 of those have come by stoppage. His 2 losses in that run have come against Ward and to Jean-Paul Mendy, with the loss to Mendy being a case of Bika getting himself disqualified with a stupid punch when Mendy was down.
Aged 34 however and with just a sole fight (a 12 round decision win over Nikola Sjekloca) in the last year, Bika certainly isn't a fighter in his peak. He has only fought 3 times in the last 30 months and whilst that may help his longevity there are questions about how much he has left in the tank. He did look to have been technically improved against Sjekloca but Sjekloca himself looked limited (but brave).
With Bika being a clear "world level" fighter this will be the first big step up for Mexican Marco Antonio Periban, a fighter many haven't really seen.
Periban is a rare Mexican Super Middleweight and one who does have genuine power (despite his record "only" showing a 65% stoppage rate). He's been slowly climbing the rankings since 2008 and although he has scored victories over several "known names" they aren't known on the world stage. In fact the best victory on his record is probably Francisco Sierra (who was stopped by George Groves) or Samuel Miller (who had been beaten by Gilberto Ramirez Sanchez and Alex Theran in his 2 of his 3 previous bouts).
Although Periban has got lights out power he's a very slow fighter who often waits too long to let his hands go, has poor footwork and pretty weak defense. He can certainly be outboxed very easily by a proper boxer and he has been hurt in the past by lesser punchers than Bika.
Despite being just 28 Periban seems to have stopped improving in recent bouts and this is a bit of a worry when he's not making the step up to world class.
With both men having power this will likely be an explosive contest. I'd expect the odd head clash though with Bika being a tough so-and-so it's hard to go against him. Bika will almost certainly be willing to force a war with Periban and if that does happen there's only one winner.
For Periban to win he needs to be able to hurt Bika and control the pace of the bout, it's hard to imagine him doing either of those. I'd imagine that Bika will walk through Periban's slow but hurtful shots whilst ping his own wild hurtful hooks around the side of the head of the Mexican and eventually force a stoppage.
Prediction- Bika by stoppage TKO7
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