Isaac Chilemba weighed in three pounds overweight for his scheduled super middleweight contest against Pavel Silyagin, which will be held at USC Soviet Wings in Moscow, Russia tomorrow, November 26. Chilemba weighed in at 171.1 pounds while Silyagin was 167.6 pounds.
This fight had several postponements which could have contributed to Chilemba missing weight although, to his credit, Silyagin came in under the 168 pound limit. More likely, Chilemba just grew out of the division. The only time he has fought as a super middleweight since 2010 was when Isaac made the weight against Fedor Chudinov earlier this year. When asked in an interview with SA Boxing Talk about making the super middleweight limit, Chilemba responded a bit unconvincingly, "We'll see. I made it last time."
Silyagin, incidentally, holds a minor belt. By coming in over the 168-pound limit, Chilemba cannot win the belt even if he wins the fight. Isaac is confident in his chances, however. "There are a lot of things missing in [his game]," Chilemba believes. "Once you put him in an uncomfortable position, he's got no idea what to do."
To SA Boxing Talk, Chilemba admitted, "My body's tired." He revealed, "I'm thinking about calling it a day either way, win or lose." The South African-based man from Malawi said he didn't want to stay in the game too long. He didn't want to end his career losing to a bunch of "nobodies." Isaac declared, "I want to finish on top. I want to finish with a bang."
But in an interview with The Combat Station a few weeks later, Chilemba slightly amended his comments on retirement. He said, "Part of me says I'm done with the sport. Part of me wants to stay a little longer." He said he will reassess his commitment to boxing after his scheduled twelve round fight with Silyagin tomorrow.
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