Tuesday night another PBC on FS1 card goes down in Studio City, California. The main event features former Ukrainian prospect Ivan Redkach (20-2-1, 16 KOs) taking on Dominican former world title holder Argenis Mendez (23-5-1, 12 KOs) in a fight where both guys really need the win. Super bantamweight prospect Brandon Figueroa (11-0, 8 KOs), brother of former world title holder Omar, fights in the co-main event.
Argenis Mendez won his title by fourth round knockout in a 2013 rematch of a decision loss against Juan Carlos Salgado. He defended it months later against Afganistan born Arash Usmanee in a fight in which Mendez was fortunate to escape with a draw. All three cards came back 114-114 in an evenly fought bout, but Mendez should have had a knockdown scored against him in the 12th when a punch caused him to touch his glove to the canvas. It was ruled a slip.
Next he fought Rances Barthelemy and was again lucky to escape with his belt. This time Mendez was hurt and dropped in the second. An overanxious Barthelemy went for a finish right at the end of the round, but a shot that dropped Mendez the second time was ruled correctly to have been thrown just after the ball. The fight was ruled a no contest and Mendez retained. Luck ran out in the rematch, however, as Barthelemy was able to widely outpoint Mendez and take his title. Mendez won his next two, most notably with a victory over recent former titlist Miguel Vazquez, before finding himself in consecutively with two of the best young lightweights in the sport: current titlist Robert Easter Jr and Olympic gold medalist Luke Campbell. Mendez fell to both, Easter by stoppage and Campbell by wide decision.
Argenis Mendez is very much in need of a win, but so is Ivan Redkach. The California based Ukrainian was once considered a real prospect, but his bubble was very much burst in a 2015 four round beating he received against Dejan Zlaticanin. Now Zlaticanin is a really good fighter who has wins over Ricky Burns and Petr Petrov as well, but Redkach wasn’t ever really competitive in that fight. Two fights later Redkach had to rally with a pair of late knockdowns to even get a draw with journeyman Luis Cruz. Most recently he was shut out by emerging contender Tevin Farmer before coming back with an easy get well fight in January.
Whether or not this is a good fight really depends on perspective. In terms of action, we have a pair of fan friendly fighters here. In terms of career momentum, who have two guys who are going to have a next to impossible road back to contention should either of them lose this fight. In terms of divisional relevance, however, there really isn’t any here. Maybe the winner will get fed to a name in a stay busy fight, but neither of these guys are very likely to register a big win going forward. Still, there are worse things than a potentially entertaining fight between two pros, even if they are two extreme fringe contenders at best.
20 year old prospect Brandon Figueroa fights as the co-feature. He is still in the part of his career where he is not matched to see if he can win, but how he looks in winning. His 7-2 opponent, Mexican Luis Saavedra, is here because he is believed by the PBC team to have no chance in hurting the momentum of the fighter they are trying to build. This is a poor co-feature even by PBC on FS1 standards, but at least Figueroa pushes forward and creates action while he tries to roll over these club fighters.
The card begins on Tuesday, May 6th, 9 PM Eastern on FS1. It isn’t necessarily a good one, but at least it is boxing on a night where there wouldn’t normally be boxing.
