Tarver's last fight was on 09/05/09 against Dawson at light heavyweight

Antonio “Magic Man” Tarver (27-6, 19 KOs) will make his return to the ring on October 15th in what will be a seventeen month layoff reportedly against heavyweight Nagy Aguilera (16-4, 11 KOs).

Tarver hasn’t been in the ring since he fought Chad Dawson for the IBF and IBO light heavyweight titles in May of 2009 and with a jump up to heavyweight how effective will the now 42-year-old Tarver really be?

Tarver was never a monster puncher at light heavyweight so logically you can’t see him really hurting guys weighing between 200-250 lbs and at age 42 despite Tarver not really being in any wars he won’t be as quick as he has been in the past either. If he becomes a stationary target for one of these big punchers he could be in serious trouble. That being said Tarver has never been knocked out and has only been down once in his whole pro career in his first fight against Eric Harding in 2000.

Tarver will surely know the risk he is taking but against Aguilera who isn’t that big of a heavyweight in terms of his size and weight it’s probably not going to affect him that much. He’ll know when he is in with a real heavyweight should he choose to challenge either of the Klitschko’s or somebody like Sam Peter or Nikolay Valuev.

Aguilera though he did score a first round stoppage over Oleg Maskaev in 2009 he came up short against Sam Peter and in his last fight lost a spilt decision to Maurice Harris.

In terms of world-class opposition there is no comparison in who has faced the better fighters. Tarver has been in with some of the best the sport has or had to offer. Roy Jones Jr, Glen Johnson, Bernard Hopkins and Chad Dawson to name a few. Aside from his two lackluster losses to Dawson and his wipeout loss to Hopkins Tarver when he has stepped up his game has delivered the goods but can he cut it in the heavyweight division?

The state the division is in is probably the only reason Tarver would even consider this there are no Lennox Lewis’ or George Foreman’s around but there are the Klitschkos and they are as big as they come.

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