By Ian S Palmer
Undefeated NABA and NABF Super Middleweight Champion Erik Bazinyan of Armenia will be putting his titles on the line this Thursday, June 1st against Jose de Jesus Macias of Mexico. The 10-rounder will be held at the Montreal Casino in Quebec, Canada. Bazinyan last fought in February when he Alantez Fox by a 10-round majority decision while Macias last boxed in July when he dropped a 10-round unanimous decision to Pavel Silyagin.
The 28-year-old Bazinyan fights out of Laval, Quebec and enters the ring with a perfect mark of 29-0 with 21 Ko’s. He’s boxed 140 rounds since making his pro debut in 2013 following an amateur career in Armenia where he reportedly won 109 of his 110 bouts. He stands 6-feet-1-inch tall with an unlisted reach and carries plenty of power in his punches with a current knockout ratio of 72.4 per cent and has stopped 12 of his last 15 opponents.
Since turning pro, Bazinyan has also won the vacant WBO Youth and WBO NABO Super Middleweight titles. His biggest wins so far have been against Fox, Zoltan Sera, Ferenc Albert, David Zegarra, Francy Ntetu, Ricardo Luna, Alan Campa, Saul Roman, Timo Laine, Scott Sigmon, and Marcelo Coceres.
As for Macias, he’s 31 years old and enters the contest with a mark of 28-11-4 with 14 Ko’s. He made his pro debut back in 2011 and has boxed 257 rounds of experience under his belt since. His power is average at best with a current knockout ratio of just 32.6 per cent. Macias measures just over 5-feet-10-inches tall and owns a 72.5-inch reach. This puts him at a 2.5-inch height disadvantage against Bazinyan.
Macias has lost his fair share of fights as he’s been beaten 11 times but he’s been stopped just once. That came at the hands of Jose Antonio Leos in the second round in 2017. Macias lost his pro debut and his fifth bout before losing just one of his next 18 fights. He’s also dropped decisions to Kerman Lejarraga, Mikael Zewski, Souleymane Cissokho, Giovani Santillan, Erickson Lubin, Alejandro Barrera, Fernando Castaneda, Juan Carlos Raygosa and Ivan Ramirez.
The four draws on Macias’ record came against Raygosa, Gerardo Vazquez, Courtney Pennington and Andri Velikovskyi in a shot at the vacant WBC International Middleweight Title. His biggest win was a fifth-round TKO over Steven Butler for the vacant WBC Francophone, NABA and NABF Middleweight Titles. He’s fighting at super middleweight for just the second time after losing to Silyagin in his last outing.
Prediction…
Bazinyan didn’t really look that impressive in his close win over Alantez Fox in February and can’t take Macias too lightly here and neither can he underestimate his opponent’s power. Bazinyan needs to improve on his last performance and start utilizing his power as he’s gone the distance in his past two fights. I’m expecting Bazinyan to have a better outing and retain his titles in another close call.
