|
24-year-old Merah (5-1-3, 1 KO) is facing his
careers first title fight, while Kroekel (31) has
fought professionally forty times (17-21-2, 7 KOs)
and participated in six championship bouts.
Youth will be matched against experience, often a
very interesting scenario.
Merah turned pro in 2010 and didn’t exactly get
off to a flying start. After three outings his
record was 0-1-2, but since then he has gone
unbeaten in six fights, avenging his sole loss
along the way, and is coming off a nice victory
over tough Serbian Misa Nikolic last November.
Having fought top-class opponents such as Robin
Krasniqi (twice), Grzegorz Soszynski, Pawel
Glazewski, Benjamin Simon and Roman Shkarupa, just
to name a few, Steve Kroekel’s statistics are less
than stellar on paper, but only very few
adversaries have been able to stop the German
inside the distance, and he always fights to win.
And if you are not on top of your game, Kroekel
will take every opportunity he can see to
capitalize on his opponents mistakes.
In his last bout, this past December, Kroekel
thoroughly dominated Congolese John Mifuba,
scoring a knockdown in the first round, en route
to a clear decision victory.
|
PRINT
