Derek Chisora: In Praise of A So-Called Trial Horse
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Mon, 16 Jan 2023
In boxing, we don't talk only about elite world champions and their deserving title rivals and adversaries.
Often times, we also talk about certain ring opponents who also gained certain measure of fame, testing them and as a result preparing them as well as giving them a better gauge of their potentials and capabilities on their way to the top.
Sometimes this sort of adversaries are known as trial horses--- fighters who could be considered as world class or world beaters themselves at some points of their careers but did not quite have the qualities to propel them to the world championship. But foes who could not be taken for granted for they can make elite fighters look bad or even play as spoilers or upset makers.
On his way up, the GOAT Cassius Clay better known as Muhammad Ali faced a lot of them, some even more than once. Fighters as Henry Cooper, George Chuvalo, Oscar Bonavena, Jerry Quarry and later Ernie Shavers and Chuck Wepner (the inspiration to the blockbuster Rocky movie series) who also tested the likes of then future heavyweight champions Joe Frazier, George Foreman and Larry Holmes.
Recently, WBC and Ring lineal world heavyweight titlist Tyson Fury was criticised for going for a fourth fight with fringe contender Derek Chisora in a stay busy title defense instead of going straight to a much awaited unification against unified WBA-IBF-WBO titleholder Oleksandr Usyk.
What most people failed to consider was Fury was merely following an age old tradition at heavyweight started perhaps even before Clay/Ali. And since it was already very late in the year, Fury and his camp perhaps thought it best to give Tyson a tune up fight against somebody who would not only keep him active but give him a challenge in preparation for Usyk. And that's Chisora who has done precisely that in three previous fights with Fury.
Chisora's record and well earned reputation as tester of world champions and elite caliber fighters in the division are an open book. It was not only Fury that he gave a stern trial of character and capabilities inside the square arena as the list in his resume included the likes of Vitali Klitschko, David Haye, Kublai Pulev, Dillian Whyte, Joseph Parker and Oleksandr Usyk himself. This while surprising the then highly rated likes of Danny Williams, Kevin Johnson, Carlos Takam, David Price and Pulev himself.
As he has done three times before, Chisora made Fury work very hard for his recent 10th round technical knockout win, the first time that the now 33 year old Zimbabwe-born was stopped inside the distance by Fury.
With a 33-13-0 win loss draw record with 23 knockout wins, Chisora as of October 2022, is ranked as the world's ninth-best active heavyweight by BoxRec. At the conclusion of a year, he has been ranked as BoxRec's top 10 heavyweight ten times, and has been ranked as among the world's top 10 heavyweights since 2013, reaching his highest ranking at No. 5 in 2013 and 2020. Chisora's knockout-to-win percentage stands at 70%.
Should Fury beats Usyk for all the heavyweight titles this year, part of the credit should go to Chisora for prepping him again.
The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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