Daniel Blenda Dos Santos vs Shakan Pitters Predictions: Pitters can tame ‘Panthere’

Daniel Blenda Dos Santos defends his European light heavyweight title against Shakan Pitters this Friday, February 7. The bout takes place at the Canon Medical Arena in Sheffield with DAZN airing the card live.

Here are my Dos Santos vs Pitters predictions ahead of this championship main event.

Daniel Blenda Dos Santos vs Shakan Pitters Odds

The champion comes in as the slight underdog with Dos Santos marketed at 6/5. Pitters is your favourite, priced at 4/6. You can back the draw at 14/1.

Daniel Blenda Dos Santos vs Shakan Pitters Fight Preview

Pitters is walking into the biggest opportunity of his career so far. The towering 6’6 boxer gets a shot at the European title on home soil. These are the fights that define your career. Pitters has been in with the best. Now he takes a step towards consideration as one of the best himself.

Champion Dos Santos will be familiar to British fans from his last visit to these shores in 2021. Current British, Commonwealth and WBO interim champion Joshua Buatsi needed just four rounds to stop Dos Santos in Manchester back in 2021. 

Dos Santos handled himself well for the first few rounds, making life awkward for Buatsi. But a thunderous overhand right ended proceedings in the fourth session. The Frenchman was knocked out cold by Buatsi’s crunching shot, undoing the good work he had done. 

But this loss does not tell the full story of Dos Santos. The Buatsi defeat was his first fight outside France and his first fight scheduled for longer than six rounds. ‘Panthere’ was brave but perhaps misguided taking on a fighter of Buatsi’s quality so early in his professional journey. 

Dos Santos seems to have learned the lessons of that dark night of the soul. After returning to six-rounders for a confidence boost, he has stepped up to championship level. Dos Santos scored a dominant decision win over Cyrille Joly for the French title before eyeing continental honours.

‘Panthere’ got the travel bug too, outpointing Tom Dzemski in Germany over 12 rounds to lift the European Union strap. Then Dos Santos went one better, winning the main European belt with a unanimous nod over Thomas Faure.

Pitters would do well to ignore the Dos Santos that lost to Buatsi. The version that will stand before him on Friday is more experienced, more travelled and more ring-ready than the iteration Buatsi swatted four years ago. Pitters might have home advantage, but he is facing an opponent who is becoming increasingly adept at fighting away from home.

In terms of learning through adversity, Pitters has some parallels with the champion. He lost his British title to Craig Richards by ninth-round TKO back in 2020. Pitters also lost to Dan Azeez for the same title two years later. 

Richards took Dmitry Bivol the distance for the WBA title in his very next fight, while Azeez went on to beat former world champion Rocky Fielding, upended Faure for the European belt and headline Wembley Arena against Joshua Buatsi. Pitters might have suffered two defeats, but he did so against top names.

Now Pitters gets a chance to become a top name himself. A win here can propel him into the upper reaches of a hot division in domestic terms. 

Azeez would likely welcome a rematch given his own career trajectory. Then there is Ben Whittaker, Callum Smith, Willy Hutchinson, Zach Parker, Joshua Buatsi, Anthony Yarde and Lyndon Arthur among others. The 175lb class is absolutely stacked in Britain and, if Pitters has the European belt around his waist, he will become a target. Big fights await but first he must get through a determined champion who has been on quite the journey.

Daniel Blenda Dos Santos vs Shakan Pitters Full Card

Daniel Blenda Dos Santos v Shakan Pitters

Shakiel Thompson v Hamisi Maya 

Taz Nadeem v Jaskirat Singh

Naphtali Nembhard v Harry Matthews

Calvin Moyo v Berman Sanchez

Daniel Blenda Dos Santos vs Shakan Pitters Prediction

This is a tricky one. I think Dos Santos has done some underrated work recently. However, Pitters is on home turf and has been in with better fighters. 

I’m going to go with Pitters here, though I think it could be closer than it appears on the surface. I like the challenger by decision, but I think it’ll be tight. You can back Pitters at 4/6.

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