For many boxing fans and writers, BoxRec.com is an indispensible resource. For me, it doubles as a good way to kill about six hours online. In a new, potentially semi-regular feature (because I’m all about semi-regularity), I will dive into the depths of BoxRec to see if anything interesting emerges.
From the weekend that just concluded…
Nenad Borovcanin (25-0, 18 KO)
Why is he here? The inaugural Bowels of BoxRec Tyrone Brunson Award for Emptiest Record proudly goes to heavyweight Nenad Borovcanin, whose opponents would make a morgue look lively. If Teddy Atlas ever stumbled upon Borovcanin’s BoxRec page, he might break his fist on his computer screen (or break his computer screen with his fist, either way).
Borovcanin fought on the Wladimir Klitschko-Eddie Chambers undercard and scored a second-round knockout against Jonathan Pasi (3-14-2, 0 KO) to maintain his impressive undefeated record. The story lies, however, in how he has accumulated that record. To date, the best opponents of Borovcanin’s 25-fight career would have to be Sven Haselhuhn (8-12, 2 KO), who lost a shutout unanimous decision to Joseph Jalusic (9-13-1) earlier last year and had never fought above cruiserweight until fighting Borovcanin, and Andreas Guenther (8-13, 6 KO), who isn’t much better. Those are the BEST fighters Borovcanin has ever fought.
The rest? Including Haselhuhn and Guenther’s lofty records, Borovcanin’s opponents have a combined record of 47 wins, 216 losses, and 8 draws. That’s a whopping 17% winning percentage, which means Borovcanin basically fights the New Jersey Nets every time out. Eleven of his 25 opponents had never won a fight before facing Borovcanin, including four making their pro debut. The only time that Borovcanin has ever fought a boxer with a winning record was, amazingly, in his pro debut, where he beat Sinisa Puljak (1-0, 1 KO) by one point on the only judge’s card listed by BoxRec.
(If the Knicks could play these guys every night they’d have an impressive record, too.)
The highlight of Borovcanin’s awesome roster of tomato cans was his March 10, 2007 battle with Peter Simko for the prestigious interim Balkan cruiserweight title. Borovcanin came into the regional title bout with a record of 11-0 with 8 KOs. Simko? He was 2-33, with both of his wins coming by knockout. Despite Borovcanin winning the fight by second-round knockout, it looks as though he never got his chance at the full Balkan cruiserweight title. Presumably, the holder of that title had too good a record.
Sedreck Fields (22-37, 16 KO)
Why is he here? Quite simply, I have a soft spot for the true journeyman, the boxers who fight everybody, usually lose, and win enough to provide a true test for up-and-coming fighters. These guys don’t have pretty records but they don’t have Borovcanin-opponent records, either. The sport wouldn’t work without them.
Fields is the prototypical heavyweight journeyman. He apparently retired in 2008 but he showed up as a past opponent of two heavyweights who fought this weekend, Alexander Ustinov (who likely proved to be Fields’ final opponent) and Carl David Drumond. Those represent two of the more obscure names on Fields’ roster. The countless notable heavyweights who faced Fields in the past decade also includes Michael Moorer, Chris Arreola, Ruslan Chagaev (twice), Larry Donald, Oleg Maskaev (twice), Ray Austin, Sergey Lyakhovich, Oliver McCall, Jameel McCline, and Shannon Briggs, against whom he notched a career-best win in 2000. And that’s not the full list.
Even today, nearly two years since his last fight, I would venture to guess that Fields would give Nenad Borovcanin a much stiffer test than any of his 25 victims did and help us figure out just how empty that record is.
