By Ryan Burton

Friday night in Indio, California, unbeaten light heavyweight contender Slava Shabranskyy (17-0) will face top ten contender Sullivan Barrera (17-1) in a bout headlining a HBO Latino card.

The 29-year-old Ukrainian has fought twice in 2016, winning both fights by knockout. Barrera is looking to bounce back from his first career defeat which took place in March against Andre Ward.

Shabranskyy said that he learned a lot from watching the Ward fight and considers this the biggest fight of his career.

"This is one of the highest challenges of my career. This is my most important fight to date. I saw the Ward fight and he didn't let Barrera do anything he wanted. That is what I took away from that fight. Barrera is a very experienced fighter both as a professional and an amateur. This is a big challenge for me and will lead to a big things in 2017," Shabranskyy stated.

A win over Barrera would open a lot of doors for Shabranskyy. One possibility is facing either Andre Ward or Sergey Kovalev after their contractually mandated rematch.

Ward won the first fight by controversial decision and Shabranskyy said that he didn't believe ether fighter had really won.

"I watched the fight three times actually and I scored it a draw. I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything. I hope the rematch is a better fight," he revealed.

As for what he wants next, Shabranskyy said that he has already sent his wish list to Santa Claus and hopes his socking stuffer is a fight against Ward who holds the WBA/WBO/IBF titles, Kovalev or WBC champion Adonis Stevenson.

"All three of them are on my Christmas wish list. I hope that I can get one of them in the ring," Shabranskyy told BoxingScene.com with a chuckle.

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