After his successful comeback at Sun City last week Brian Mitchell is aiming for a title fight
BOXING: Drew Forrest
UNLOVABLY arrogant he may be, but Brian Mitchell showed he had lost little of his two-fisted magic after a three-year layoff at the Sun City Superbowl last Saturday.
Beefier, harder-hitting but marginally slower than when he held the WBA and IBF titles — he has moved up two divisions to junior welterweight — he overwhelmed American opponent Mike Evgen over six rounds in which he progressively rediscovered his distance.
Evgen had been written down by the local press as a reformed alcoholic who had been in a coma last year, but was not quite the pushover reports had suggested. He lost every round but landed some solid blows before failing to emerge from his corner in the seventh.
Mitchell has always had a high opinion of his own boxing talents, but typically approached his earlier fights — including 14 title fights — with hard-nosed, low-risk professionalism. It was startling to see him clown his way through his comeback, feinting with burlesque exaggeration, winding up laboriously with his right and jabbing with his left, and dropping his hands.
He could afford to do it against the baby-faced Evgen, who despite his record of 25 victories in 29 matches has never beaten a fighter of note.
Always a shrewd campaigner, Mitchell used the early rounds to find his timing, concentrating on short combinations of body-shots and jabs. By the fifth he had broken Evgen’s resistance and in the sixth he launched an all-out offensive from the bell which saw the American take 50 or 60 blows to the head.
The question is: where does Mitchell go from here? At 33, he is unlikely to be contemplating a protracted return to the ring. Quick bucks are the spur in most comebacks — a title and one or two defences at most is probably on his agenda.
At the post-fight conference, he brushed aside suggestions that he was insufficiently prepared for a title shot.
He suggested he would have knocked out Tony Lopez, whom he beat in 1991 for the IBF junior lightweight title, on his Sun City form.
Qualifying for a title challenge should present no obstacles. Given his former titles in two divisions he could be rated immediately, said heavyweight promoter Cedric Kushner at the press bash.
Through Kushner, who has major influence in the IBF, he has a beaten path to fleet-fisted Russian and WBA lightweight titleholder Orzubek Nazarov. The most likely scenario is a match after the latter’s title defence against Joey Gamache on December 10.
Mitchell announced that he still considers himself 2kg over his normal fighting weight and that he intends campaigning as a lightweight.
His other, and more lucrative option, would be a crack at the legendary Chavez, who has lost once and drawn once in 90-odd fights but who at 32 has lost some of his snake-like speed and aggression.
But one of the most respected local fight observers, Boxing World’s Ron Jackson, believes Mitchell would be ill-advised to climb into the ring with either champion before at least one more preparatory bout — despite his impressive showing at the Superbowl.
“He’s only trained for three months; he needs more time to harden and condition himself,” Jackson said. “It’s a different game when you’re up against those guys.”