NBC Sports Quick Picks

Steve Cunningham vs. Natu Visinia: This Saturday night most fans will be tuning into HBO to check out the knockout artists known as Gennady Golovkin.  However HBO won't be the only boxing card that night.  NBC Sports will have a card of their own which will be headlined by Steve "USS" Cunningham (27-6, 12 KO).  Cunningham will be challenged by the unknown Natu Visinia (10-0, 8 KO) who seems to be vastly out of his league in this 10 round bout in the heavyweight division.  Cunningham has much more experience and has always fought a high level of competition while most of Visinia's opponents have only had a handful of fights and losing records.  Cunningham is coming off two wins in a row that followed two straight losses against Tomasz Adamek and Tyson Fury.  Following his loss to Fury, Cunningham took an 8 round tuneup fight and looked good then followed that up by getting off the canvas twice to knock down and beat Amir Mansour.  Cunningham who seems to be a perennial contender shouldn't have to difficult of a time with Visinia but he needs to be careful because his opponent does have good power.  Cunningham is a rangy orthodox boxer with good athleticism for the heavyweight division and he has an excellent jab.  He also has a good straight right hand which is his power hand but his best attribute is his heart.  Numerous times Cunningham has gotten off the the deck to finish fights and in his six losses he has only been knocked out once which came against the much bigger Fury.  Aside from being more experience Cunningham will also bring the better body into the ring.  Cunningham always enters the ring looking extremely fit while his opponent Visinia usually looks like he just got done plowing through an all you can eat buffet.  Visinia actually is pretty light on his feet for such a large man but that won't help much on Saturday night.  Visinia's defense is terrible and he gets caught clean very often.  His jab doesn't do any damage and he just uses it to find the range for his wide left hook and overhand right.  The only way Visinia will win this fight is if he lands a lucky punch but that seems highly unlikely.  Cunningham will have an easy time picking Visinia apart with his jab and straight right hand and will win this fight by a wide unanimous decision.


Edner Cherry vs. Osumanu Akaba: The co-feature on Saturday's card will be a battle of fighters in their early thirties.  That fight will have Edner Cherry (32-6-2, 17 KO) taking on Osumanu Akaba (31-6-1, 24 KO) in a 10 round lightweight tilt.  This fight could come down to who has more left in the tank, especially in the late rounds.  Akaba hasn't gone past 8 rounds since 2008 when he lost to Ricky Burns while Cherry last went past 8 rounds in 2012.  Also Akaba is coming off of a loss while Cherry has won four fights in a row, eight fights if you don't count his bout against Eric Aiken which was ruled a no contest.  Also throughout his career Cherry has fought the better opponents having lost to the likes of Timothy Bradley and Paulie Malignaggi while Akaba's only real big fight was his loss to Burns.  The orthodox Cherry has a nice jab in his arsenal but he can also get wild at times, especially with his left hook.  Cherry does have a good chin however and in his six losses has never been knocked out.  The problem for Cherry is that he is essentially a one handed fighter.  He does throw an overhand right but he throws it extremely wide and wildly so it doesn't land much.  As for Akaba there is virtually no tape of him online which is never a good sign for a fighter.  He is an orthodox puncher from Ghana which means he is tough but probably not the most skilled.  A lot of fighters work hard to fight their way out of Ghana but make it on their toughness rather than their sharp skills.  While his knockout percentage would indicate that he has good power most of his opponents have been complete tomato cans and some of his recent wins have come over opponents with records of 0-8, 0-11, and 0-6.  While Akaba may catch Cherry and drop him he probably won't be able to stop him considering Cherry's chin is very good.  This won't be the prettiest fight in the world but Cherry should win it by the way of unanimous decision.