IBF and WBO middleweight champion Janibek Alimkhanuly will make his next defense against unbeaten Anauel Ngamissegue on April 5th in his homeland in Astana, Kazakhstan.
It’s unclear why Janibek’s management is using the 29-year-old Congo-born Ngamissegue (14-0, 9 KOs) as the challenger rather than one of the contenders that fans around the world have heard of.
Ngamissegue has one notable win among his 14 career victories against Fiodor Czerkaszyn, and that was a razor-close eight-round majority decision two years ago in 2023. Since then, Ngamissegue has fought just once, beating Sandro Jajanidze (12-32-2) by a third-round knockout on June 8, 2024. That guy is pretty typical of the other wins on Ngamissegue’s six-year career resume.
Unfortunately, this may be as good as it gets for the 2016 Olympian Janibek. He’s not popular enough to get the better-known contenders to face him, like Hamzah Sheeraz, Chris Eubank Jr., and Shane Mosley Jr., to fight him.
The middleweight division is so empty of talent that these three are what passes for being the cream of the crop in this era, and it’s frankly pathetic. Those guys wouldn’t even rate as bottom feeders during the height of Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin’s careers at 160.
Janibek is so good that none of those guys or any of the other two champions at 160 want to mix it up with him and likely get knocked out.
Last October, Alimkhanuly made easy work of Andrei Mikhailovich, toying with him until knocking him out in the ninth round of a one-sided mismatch. That fight was hard to watch because it lacked any entertainment value.
The best name on Janibek’s nine-year resume is Denzel Bentley, and he had a tough time beating him by a 12-round unanimous decision in 2022. Bently soaked up terrible punishment from Janibek but was able to inflict some pushing shots of his own by going the distance against the tired WBO champion.
