Cherneka Johnson vs. Dina Thorslund Preview by Hisham Zaben
The best fighting the best in the true sense of the meaning is what we have in front of us when Cherneka Johnson (19-2) defends her IBF, WBC, WBO and WBA bantamweight titles against Dina Thorslund (24-0) on Aug. 6 in Caribe Royale, Orlando, Florida.
Cherneka is the first-ever male or female undisputed boxing champion from Australia and what an accomplishment to be able to say that. Dina Thorslund has had an equally impressive career widely regarded as the best female boxer from Denmark ever. This is a fight between the number one in the division versus the number two. I am not even sure that Cherneka deserves to be labeled as the number one between the pair of them because Dina Thorslund never lost the titles in the ring. Dina had the WBC and WBO bantamweight titles until she in 2025 became a “champion in recess” and Cherneka got the opportunity to fight for the titles against Shuretta Metcalf and won them.
Looking at their fighting styles and we have to remember that styles makes fights, I can clearly note that they both have advantages over the other. To start it off, one of the biggest advantages that any of them has is the hand speed advantage that Dina carries over Cherneka. Dina Thorslund has very fast hands and she has no issues with throwing punches in flurries where you will see her get off three or four punches very quickly and accurately mixing it up to the head and body.
Cherneka Johnson has the better straight punches of the two. She keeps her hands up responsively and she goes after her opponents with hard long straight punches usually pushing the opponents back.
Both ladies likes to fight at a fast pace and both of them have good endurance. Cherneka Johnson struggled a little bit with Nina Hughes who in some way resembles Dina with fast hands and good technical skills but ultimately Cherneka did beat her two times in a row. Dina is a better and younger version of Nina Hughes so one way to see it could be that if Nina Hughes could trouble Cherneka the way that she did, Dina can do it even better and perhaps win.
Defensively Cherneka did get touched by Nina in those fights with a lot of clean punches and Dina with her fast and accurate flurries can probably have a lot of success on the inside if Cherneka´s defense is the same as before. On the other hand in Dina Thorslund´s last fight against Almudena Alvarez, a lot of times when Dina would get in a good position and let off three-four punches landing on Alvarez, she would still get caught with a straight right hand on the way out. Dina fights with her hands low sometimes and she wasn´t able to stay away from the straight right hands of Alvarez and Cherneka Johnson´s straight right hand is harder and better than Alvarez.
Both fighters likes to go forward and none of them really likes to fight of the back foot but I have the feeling that it could be Dina who has the better feet movement. I still don´t think that it would a wise gameplan for Dina to let Cherneka “fight her fight” by constantly going forward and getting off first because even if she gets countered a lot, the judges subconsciously might interpret that by Cherneka having her way. They are used to seeing Cherneka always going straight forward and always winning dominantly and a good way to put that off would be for Dina to “bully the bully”. No fighter who themselves like to be aggressive and push fighters back, likes to be pushed back themselves.
Both fighters are essentially away fighters in this fight and the house fighter at the same time, what do I mean by that? Cherneka is from Australia and Dina from Denmark and they are fighting in Orlando, Florida so both are technically fighting away from home. At the same time, both ladies are signed to the same company Most Valuable Promotions so both are “house fighters”. Nonetheless it is Cherneka who is the undisputed Bantamweight Champion and she is billed as the A-side in this fight and furthermore she is the more known quantity in the United States having fought her last two fights there.
One thing I have noticed as a boxing handicapper is that it is very difficult to win a fight where you are fighting someone who is undisputed and having all four titles if you don´t win by knockout of course. If you do that then it is settled right away. You see a lot of fighters becoming a champion or even unified champion by winning one or two titles on the line, and even that is very difficult. But when someone is Undisputed and carries all four belts to the ring, for one reason or another, beating them on points is extremely difficult. Usually the appointed judges are one from every organization to make it fair.
The judges are very reluctant to score close rounds to the challenger in fights where all four titles belongs to one person and the other is challenging for them unless it is crystal clear what it is that is taking place in the ring.
Dina Thorslund needs to come out with a purpose in this fight and take control as soon as the bell rings to remind Cherneka that these are my titles and you were just holding them for me. She needs to make a statement immediately to earn the respect of Cherneka and make her think twice about rushing in. To understand the right mentality Dina needs to have going in to this fight is to see what Tiara Brown did when she went to Australia and beat Skye Nicolson to become the WBC featherweight Champion. That was a perfectly executed fight where Brown really was up against it as the underdog and not only that, also fighting in Nicolson´s backyard and she did any and everything she needed to do to get that victory. She wasn´t going to be denied that night.
For Cherneka, with a confidence sky-high right now after her two biggest wins in America, I expect her to come in tremendous shape. She will understand that Dina presents a lot of difficulties for her but she will have the belief that she has what it takes to win and keep her titles. Whatever she lacks in technical ability she makes up for with brute strength and determination. She has a very strong will to win and so does Dina Thorslund.
Another thing is that Dina Thorslund never has tasted defeat so she doesn´t know how to lose and Cherneka has lost twice but there is no shame in losing to Ellie Scotney who is among the very best fighters in the world pound-for-pound.
For me this is a very close fight and I have a lot of difficulties separating them by more than a couple of rounds. I can´t see any of them dominating the other where they win wide on the cards. I think all the rounds will be very close and competitive. I believe the fight goes the distance. I do not see any knockdowns taking place in this fight. In the end it can come down to who is having the better night of the two. This will be a difficult nights work for the judges with the 2-minute rounds and only ten of them. I can see a 96-94 either way type of fight or a DRAW. They are so evenly matched here that probably the most likely outcome could be just that, a DRAW where both fighters will think that they have won.
This is also the type of fight where it is likely that the judges sees it differently than each other but still arrive to almost the same close numbers but scoring it very differently from round-to-round. The scorecards could look like this:
Perhaps 96-94 on one card each and the third judge having it 95-95 for a split draw. Perhaps a majority draw something like a 95-95, 95-95 and the last judge 96-94 to one of them, or perhaps 96-94 with two of the judges and the third judge 94-96 for a winner by split-decision.
Only time will tell and we have one of the best fights of the year in front of us for the Undisputed WBA, WBC, WBO and IBF bantamweight titles. Good luck to both ladies!