Dmitry “The Mechanic” Mikhayleno (20-0, 9 KOs) and Karim “Hard Hitta” Mayfield (19-2-1, 11 KOs) will face each other in the opening bout of the Kovalev-Pascal II HBO World Championship Boxing telecast Saturday night live from the Centre Bell in Montreal, Quebec, Canada for ten rounds. The scouting report for this bout is below:
Category | Dmitry “The Mechanic” Mikhaylenko | Karim “Hard Hitta” Mayfield |
Age | 29 | 35 |
Record | 20-0-0 (9 KOs) | 19-2-1 (11 KOs) |
Strength | Dmitry has impressive endurance. He throws an unlimited number of punches and utilizes a fearless in-your-face style. | Mayfield has faced high-level opposition. He possesses good speed in his hands and has a strong chin as well. |
Weakness | Mikhaylenko does not possess knockout power in either hand. His in-your-face style also allows his opponents to land shots. | Karim has a tendency to get sloppy at times. He can be a brawler in the ring at times, rather than utilize his boxing skills. |
Experience | Dmitry has not faced the same top-level opposition as Karim. His biggest win to date came in his most recent bout against former interim titleholder Johan Perez in August on HBO Latino. | Mayfield has substantial experience. He fought former title contender Thomas Dulorme and holds a win over former interim titlist Mauricio Herrera. He has also previously competed on HBO in the Kovalev-Agnew co-feature in March of 2014. |
Power | Dmitry lacks significant power in both hands. | Karim’s power comes out when he smells blood. He has an overhand right that has worked wonders for him in the past. |
Speed | The Mechanic has one speed that he likes to maintain throughout the fight. | Hard Hitta has good hand speed when he puts his punches together. He also moves around the ring well which makes his opponents come to him. |
Endurance | Mikhaylenko possesses great endurance. He is able to maintain a steady pace throughout the entire fight while also utilizing a high punch output. | Karim has solid endurance as he has been a full ten rounds on four separate occasions. However, he has shown fatigue in the later rounds of some fights. He cannot afford to do that against Mikhaylenko because of the unrelenting pressure that Dmitry likes to apply. |
Accuracy | Dmitry is very accurate with his punches. He fights at close range and throws punches and combinations from all angles at a very short distance. | Mayfield demonstrates average accuracy when he is boxing, but he tends to get sloppy. He has also been known to headhunt rather than put his punches together and vary his targets. |
Defense | The Mechanic’s offense might just be his best defense. He likes to dictate the pace of the fight by walking his opponents down, which can overwhelm his opponents with an offensive onslaught of punches. | Karim moves around the ring well but sometimes he does not move enough. He tends to find himself going toe-to-toe with guys rather than sticking and moving. |
Chin | Mikhaylenko’s chin is still a question as he has yet to be in any great danger thus far. | Mayfield has a solid chin. He has been rocked in the past but never stopped. |
Style | Dmitry is a high volume puncher who is always moving forward. He likes to throw punches from all angles and apply constant pressure throughout the fight. | Karim is an entertaining fighter with quick hand speed and decent power. He has no problem trading punches with whoever is standing in front of him. |
Crowd Support | The Mechanic may have earned himself some fans in Canada when he competed at the Centre Bell last March when he scored a fifth round stoppage win. | Mayfield may have good crowd support because he has the bigger name of the two. He has also been on the big stage before, so he might be well-received coming into the bout. |
Intangibles | At 20-0 Mikhaylenko is not trying to protect his undefeated record. He was originally slated to face ranked contender Ray Robinson and he did not think twice about the change of opponent. He is testing his skills against another highly regarded former title contender in Karim Mayfield. The Mechanic is well-aware that a loss here could be a major setback in his hunt for a world title, but a win can be the catalyst that gets him there. | Karim has been inactive for over a year after two tough and close losses against Thomas Dulorme and Emanuel Taylor. Rather than bounce back with tune-ups to alleviate any ring rust, he has opted to accept the dangerous task of facing an undefeated and ranked welterweight in Dmitry Mikhaylenko. Similar to Dmitry, a loss here after a year out of the ring can be detrimental to his career, but a win would put him right back on the map in this stacked welterweight division. |
The Match-up |
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According to Main Events’ matchmaker and NABF Matchmaker of the Year, Jolene Mizzone, “I give both of these guys a lot of credit. Mikhaylekno was originally supposed to fight a southpaw in Robinson and he accepted a last minute switch to Mayfield, who many believe is a tougher fight then Robinson. Also, Mayfield accepted this fight on two weeks’ notice instead of taking a scheduled tune-up fight in February. This should be an exciting fight!”
