Saturday night at 10:15 PM, thankfully after the Showtime broadcast is scheduled to end, HBO brings a two fight double header from Madison Square Garden. In the main event, elite pound for pound fighter Terence “Bud” Crawford defends his two junior welterweight belts against former Olympic gold medalist Felix Diaz. Ray Beltran and Peru’s Jonathon Maicelo will do battle in the co-feature at lightweight in an IBF semi-final eliminator.
Terence Crawford (30-0, 21 KOs) is a great fighter in a not so great division. After he dominated Viktor Postol last July he had effectively cleared out junior welterweight. He doesn’t seem interesting in moving up again to welterweight yet and instead says he wants to unify 140. That could theoretically be done in one fight as world scene newcomer Julius Indongo of Namibia rather improbably has earned the other two belts, but given sanctioning body politics that is easier said than done. All four bodies are going to want the two fighters to be fighting their mandatory challengers, not each other.
If that fight is not being made, it is fighters like Felix Diaz (19-1, 9 KOs) who are left for Crawford. Diaz, who we should note is 33 and hasn’t actually made the junior welterweight limit since 2014, is a difficult fighter to get a read on. He had a very good showing against Lamont Peterson and may have had an argument to win that fight. Otherwise, however, there is really nothing there on his resume. I thought Adrian Granados deserved the win against the Dominican gold medalist and I am not sure that Sammy Vasquez is really a top fighter. Terence Crawford has about every advantage there is to have in this fight.
The co-feature is on paper a little weak for HBO, but I am not going to complain about it. Three time title challenger Raymundo Beltran (32-7-1, 20 KOs) of Mexico should beat Jonathan Maicelo (25-2, 12 KOs) pretty comfortably, probably by stoppage. They are both come forward, action friendly fighters though and it should be a fun ride. So yes, Beltran is a fringe HBO quality fighter while Maicelo isn’t even close, but I’d rather have a fun fight between these two then a stinker between two higher rated fighters. The winner of the fight will be put in an IBF eliminator for a shot at the Robert Easter Jr/Denis Shafikov winner.
Three Olympic prospects fight on the off television undercard highlighted by US silver medalist Shakur Stevenson (1-0). Top Rank are trying to groom him to be a superstar. Teofimo Lopez (4-0, 4 KOs) and Uzbekistan gold medalist Fazliddin Gaibnazarov (1-0, 1 KO) are also in action.
