A special edition of PBC’s smaller FS1 cards breaks the Tuesday night tradition this week with a Sunday night card featuring the return of professional B-side Josesito Lopez (34-7, 19 KOs) against journeyman Saul Corral (23-8, 14 KOs). In the co-main event PBC lightweight prospect Alejandro Luna takes on former title challenger Andrey Klimov in a good test to see how close to serious contention the California product might be.
Josesito Lopez emerged on the boxing scene with a 2011 upset of then unbeaten Mike Dallas Jr on ESPN2, following that with a narrow decision loss to now top contender Jesse Vargas. It was his next fight, however, a TKO9 over the always unpredictable Victor Ortiz that really announced his arrival. Since that night the boxing gods have not been as kind to Lopez. In his three biggest fights since he has been stopped in six or less by top fighters Canelo Alvarez, Marcos Maidana, and Andre Berto. He has become a professional B-side, a get well opponent for a big money fighter needing a win. It is difficult to imagine him escaping that caste. Maybe he doesn’t even want to as the money there is better than what he would get being his own star. To continue even that, however, he needs wins in between his self-sacrifices to prop him up. Tomorrow night should be one of those.
Saul Corral is just the fighter for the job. In his 23 wins, only one has come against an opponent with ten plus victories of their own. Many have come against opponents with losing records. This will be Corral’s third attempt at stepping up to something approaching world level opposition. His first was in a get well fight for the diminished 2016 version of Mike Alvarado in which Saul was stopped in three. Next he was again the get well opponent for the return of former prospect Sadam Ali in January following his first defeat. Ali comfortably outboxed Corral, dropping him in the fourth and pitching a near shut out on the cards. Tomorrow night Saul Corral is here to be the bounce back win for Josesito Lopez, himself the bounce back fighter for the stars.
Andre Klimov is the one here to lose in the co-feature against unbeaten lightweight Alejandro Luna. The Russian born Klimov’s best win was a 2013 decision win over John Molina. Since he has also beaten a decent fighter in Francisco Contreras, but has lost wide to top level fighters in Liam Walsh, Jose Pedraza (in Klimov’s sole title shot), and of course Terence Crawford. These wide ranging results afford us an opportunity to really evaluate Luna tomorrow night and this is the most interesting part of the card. Depending on what the 34 year old Klimov has left, Luna is at the very least taking a small step up here.
Richard Schaefer’s young Ringstar Promotions also has several 2012 Olympians for varying countries debuting on the card. Based on the PBC website, it looks like American team member Carlos Balderas’ debut will be televised.
