By Niall Doran
The always explosive, entertaining and still undefeated heavyweight contender Mike “The Rebel” Perez (20-0, 12KO’s) returns to action this weekend at the Bell Centre in Montreal Canada when he takes on the hard hitting and very dangerous African Carlos Takam (29-1, 23KOs) of the Cameroon.
I’ve always been a fan of Perez going back to even before he won Prizefighter in 2011. I had watched him live prior to that at a local show in Cork in 2010 and straight away was impressed with the obvious Cuban silky skills combined with quite a dig to boot.
Since then his career has gone from strength to strength and he now finds himself not far away from forcing himself into a mandatory contender position at one of the heavyweight straps.
With Vitali retiring and vacating his WBC belt late last year this could give Mike the opportunities he so desperately craves later on in the year after the belt has been contested by a likely Stiverne vs Arreola encounter. When you look at the rest of the heavyweight contenders out there and other hopefuls besides the reigning king Wlad, I would put Mike Perez up against any of them to be honest and don’t see a more skilled heavyweight out there.
In his last fight against previously undefeated Russian Magomed Abdusalamov in November, Perez scored an impressive 10 rounds points win in a brutal encounter that unfortunately sent Abdusalamov into a medically induced coma. Thankfully Magomed is doing a lot better now with reports over the last few weeks suggesting he is on the mend.
It will be interesting to see has this had any psychological effects on Mike though and will he have the same killer instinct going into this fight? That win last November was without doubt the biggest of his career so far and for me showed he is more than capable of winning a version of the title this year amongst the current crop of contenders.
The main thing with Mike Perez for me is the condition he comes to the ring in. In previous bouts he has been known to come in a little on the heavy side but in the last couple of years to be fair he seems to have really dedicated himself in most of his training camps.
This weekend he is facing a big punching and dangerous contender from the Cameroon but for me, an in shape and hungry Perez should have far too much class for him and win convincingly over the distance or possibly stoppage in the later rounds.
I’ve put my neck out before on certain calls and I’m willing to do it again – Mike Perez to win a version of the world title in 2014.
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