Surging lightweight contender Ray Beltran is returning May 20th as the co-feature to the Terence Crawford/Felix Diaz HBO card in Madison Square Garden. His opponent is Jonathan Maicielo of Peru. The fight is being sanctioned by the IBF as a title eliminator meaning the winner of this fight will get a shot at the winner of the upcoming Robert Easter Jr/Denis Shafikov title bout.
Raymundo Beltran (32-7-1, 20 KOs) is a former three time lightweight title challenger, but the overall story is a little more complicated than than him simply failing on three occasions. In 2013 he fought Ricky Burns in Burns’s native Scotland to a draw, but I and many others thought Beltran deserved the decision and that belt. In 2014 Beltran was soundly outboxed by Terence Crawford in his second title shot, but so is everyone else who fights Crawford. In 2015 Beltran fought Takahiro Ao for a vacant belt and won by second round knockout, but problematically he both missed weight by half a pound and failed a post fight drug test so he didn’t win the belt.
Since the Ao bout burns is 3-0 with all wins coming by KO. Most recently he knocked off then rising contender Mason Menard by seventh round stoppage. That fight was also the HBO co-feature to Terence Crawford’s most recent fight.
Jonathan Maicielo (25-2, 13 KOs) is much, much less well known. In early 2015 he stepped up to face Darleys Perez on a Friday Night Fights card and was soundly defeated. Just this February, however, he redeemed himself by dominating and upsetting Top Rank Mexican prospect Jose Felix Jr on a UniMas Solo Boxeo card. Beltran figures to be a big favorite here as his resume is ten times that of Maicielo’s, but Beltran is also 35 and aging every day.
Shakur Stevenson (1-0) also has his second pro bout on this card, but I do not believe it is slated for the HBO broadcast.
