Nikita Basin to Fight Joel McIntyre Saturday

Light heavyweight Nikita Basin is scheduled to fight Joel "El Toro" McIntyre on Saturday, October 23 at South Parade Pier in McIntyre's hometown of Portsmouth, England, United Kingdom. Basin is a late replacement for Lewis Van Poetsch. Coincidentally, Lewis has fought and fallen to two Jewish boxers, Danny Ahrens and Tony Milch.

Basin was born in Belarus and now lives in Israel. After a late start in the pro game, he is 4-0 with 4 KOs. Basin has fought a total of six professional rounds. All four of his fights took place between July 2019 and January 2020. He last fought in a professional boxing match 21 months ago. His opponents sported a combined 1-15 record when he faced them. McIntyre is a giant step up.

McIntyre's career can be spun in different ways. On the positive side, he is a former English light heavyweight champion with a 18-4 record. All of his losses have been at the hands of men who have held the English light heavyweight belt at some point in their careers. Two of them came against Miles Shinkwin and another to Liam Conroy. His other loss came in a funky tournament in which he dropped a three-round decision to Doc Spelman after dropping him in the second stanza.

McIntyre has virtually all of the advantages heading into this fight. At 33 years old, he's a bit younger than Basin. He has loads more pro more experience, has fought the better opposition, and he's fighting in his hometown.

On the negative side, McIntyre has only three wins against fighters with a winning record. In his second pro fight, he beat a 13-12 opponent on points. Another win came against Shinkwin, who he has lost to twice. And the other win came against a 7-2 foe in a three-round decision in that weird tournament.

McIntyre has only three KOs on his record; Basin has four. Despite having more experience, El Toro has been inactive longer. All of Basin's pro fights have come since McIntyre last entered the ring. After winning the English light heavyweight title against Shinkwin in 2016, the pinnacle of Joel's career thus far, Conroy stopped him in the second round of their fight the following year. McIntyre scored a momentum-changing knockdown in the second round of his fight with Spelman, but became overconfident and was knocked down himself in the same round before dropping the decision.

McIntyre had a shot to regain the vacant English title in 2018. His opponent, for the third time, was Miles Shinkwin. At the end of the ten-rounder, the judges declared Shinkin the winner. "I’ll be honest, I was fed up with boxing," McIntyre told The Portsmouth News about the loss.. "I didn’t put on a pair of gloves for about a year- didn’t hit anything for about a year- I was totally done with it."

Though McIntyre has only three KOs, he's not a light-hitting boxer. He'll mix it up. But he can be hurt. He's been knocked down and cut in several fights. Basin is a puncher and roughing up McIntyre on the inside and trading punches with him is probably his best chance for what would be a huge win for the Israeli.

Basin-McIntyre is slated for six rounds.