By Hisham Zaben
Oliver Zaren (18-0) will have to face the difficulties of getting a new opponent during fight week just a few days prior to their meeting this saturday Jan. 31 in Kolding, Denmark. Zaren had been preparing to face a tall southpaw in Mikalai Vesialou, a decorated former amateur boxer with good pedigree. In preparing to face a southpaw he has been sparring left handed fighters as you would expect. I know that because one of the fighters he has sparred, is my fighter, the unbeaten Ajet Jusufi 3-0 from Malmo. Sweden. He has also sparred the likes of Hamza Hussein, an unbeaten southpaw cruiserweight prospect with a perfect 10-0 record and another swede in Hampus Henriksson, also an experienced unbeaten southpaw fighter. So he was doing everything right in preparing for the Belarus Mikalai Vesialou and then he got the word that the fight is off. Now you aren´t facing a southpaw anymore and you must readjust a little bit to get your mind right because we have seen the disaster that comes sometimes with facing late minute replacements. There are many examples of that.
However, I don´t get the impression that Oliver will be out of sorts against a late replacement like David Benitez. This is in my view a perfect late replacement. The idea of a late replacement is of course, first priority that you don´t bring in someone that can beat your guy. On the other hand, they can´t be of a too low level otherwise the whole card loses value for the paying customer so therefor this is a good choice.
David Benitez with a 13-10 record has been stopped four times out of the ten that he has lost. More importantly than that; in his last four losses he has been stopped all four times so it will be expected here that Oliver Zaren stops him also and that can perhaps put a little bit of pressure on Zaren which could lead to him “trying” too much to knock him out which in turn can make it take longer time for the knockout to come if it comes at all. All of the information above does not make Benitez an easy opponent by any means. He is just 31 years of age, still in his good years.
Furthermore when you look closer at his last four stoppage losses you will notice that they all have come against real quality opposition against unbeaten top prospects which in a way puts Zaren in a pressure spot to perform on Saturday. On of the four losses Benitez has endured by ko was against a monstrous light heavyweight puncher in Imam Khataev who hits like a brickwall. He has been stopped in rounds 7, 6, 3 and 4 prior to this.
Having seen Oliver up close recently and seeing in what tremendous form he is in I am expecting him to make the proper adjustments in facing another opponent on short notice and I don´t see him having issues with Benitez. We also have to remember that Benitez is taking this fight in very short notice which most likely means that he isn´t in peak form and add to that the long travel from Argentina and you can see that he is in for a tough night in Kolding. I expect this to be a showcase fight for Zaren. He is expected to stop Benitez and I believe he will do just that and look spectacular on fight night. I expect it to happen in the 2nd half of the fight so from rounds 5-8 in this scheduled eight rounder.