Heavyweights Joey Dawejko and Natu Visinia face off for a scheduled eight rounds at the D Hotel & Casino on August 28?
?Words don?t break bones.??Samoan proverb
Heavyweights Joey Dawejko and Natu Visinia face off for a scheduled eight rounds at the D Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on August 28.
Twenty-five-year-old Dawejko is a six-year pro (14-4-2, 7 KOs) who fights out of Philly. ?Polish Thunder? most recently fought in May, losing in his quest for the vacant Pennsylvania heavyweight title to Amir Mansour, who won by unanimous decision, Dawejko?s first loss since being retired by Charles Martin in the fourth in November 2013. The powerful Pole?s most recent win came in March, when he knocked out Enobong Umohette in the first. The fighter from Philly was originally slated to take on Mr. TBA at Bally?s Atlantic City on August 7, but that now seems unlikely.
Thirty-year-old Visinia is a six-year ring vet (11-1, 9 KOs). A Samoan who fights out of Clinton, Illinois, ?The Truth? last fought in May, knocking out Joshua Clark in the fourth. His only loss came by way of Steve Cunningham, who retired him in the seventh in October 2014, despite Visinia putting him down in the fifth.
Dawejko is 5?10? and usually weighs in at around 230, but came in at almost 250 when he fought (and lost to) Didier Bence in February 2013. In short (pun intended), he?s a fattie. Visinia is four inches taller, but not exactly what Tom Wolfe would call a social x-ray. The least he?s weighed as a pro is 258 and he?s gone as high as 279. He, too, is a fattie.
Torn between two fatties, feelin? like a fool. Well, not a fool exactly, but it is indeed difficult to choose between these two chubmeisters. On the one hand, BoxRec ranks Visinia much lower than Dawejko, who reminds me somewhat of fellow kielbasa, Ivan Putski. ?Polish Power? had been a premier pro wrestler in the ?70s (though he?d become pretty much of a jobber by the succeeding decade). On the other, it?s the Samoans who own pro wrestling. Think of the famous Anoa?i family, for instance (of which boxer David Tua is a member). A harbinger, perhaps, that Putski (who stood 5?6? and weighed in at around 225) and partner Tito Santana lost their WWF World Tag Team title to The Wild Samoans. Let?s see what the third hand holds. Dawejko did go the distance with hard-hitting ?Hardcore? Mansour. He also decisioned tough Derric Rossy in January 2014. But it?s in looking at the fourth hand that we see Visinia giving respected Cunningham a hard time before suffering his only loss.
All right, enough with the hands. Everything being pretty much equal, I generally go with the shorter guy. But not this time. I can?t get past Visinia almost sinking the ?USS? Cunningham. The Samoan by fourth-round TKO.
