Frank Warren has announced his fight schedule over the next couple months. The bookings include the necessary rematch of the controversial first fight between Liam Smith and Liam Williams, an intriguing British title bout with Tyrone Nurse defending against rising prospect Jack Catterall, a Josh Warrington fight, and a couple top prospects on the upcoming Saunders/Monroe undercard.
Top Warren prospects Anthony Yarde (11-0, 10 KOs) and Daniel Dubois (4-0, 4 KOs) will return on the September 16th undercard of Billy Joe Saunders’s title defense against Willie Monroe. Do not expect either of these guys in particularly deep, but knockouts will be provided. Heavyweight Dubois will only have just turned 20, but Warren has been pushing for a light heavyweight British title shot for Yarde against Frank Buglioni. That could very well land as a co-main event to a world title fight in the UK, but I feel like Yarde’s addition to the card would have been a little louder if this was the plan.
On October 21st, emerging featherweight Josh Warrington (25-0, 5 KOs) will main event a Leeds card against an opponent yet to be announced. Given how badly Warrington struggled against an entirely shot and outsized Kiko Martinez last time out, it will be interesting to see where Warren goes here for an opponent. It could have just been a bad night for the 26 year, but to me it felt like a ceiling defining fight.
Perhaps more interestingly, the co-main event to the Warrington card has been announced as a Tyrone Nurse (35-2-2, 7 KOs) junior welterweight British title defense against unbeaten prospect Jack Catterall (18-0, 10 KOs). Nurse is a good fighter, but he is firmly stuck on the British level so this will be an excellent barometer for where 24 year old Catterall is relative to his world level aspirations.
Finally, one week later on October 28th, Manchester will see the anticipated rematch of Liam Smith’s (25-1-1, 14 KOs) controversial ninth round cuts stoppage win over Liam Williams (16-1-1, 11 KOs) in a fight Williams was winning. The cut seemed to be caused by a headbutt, not a punch. If this were the case as it appeared to be, the fight should have gone to the cards and Liam Williams awarded an interim WBO belt. Smith did not make weight and therefore was not eligible to win the title.
That is significant as Canelo Alvarez then vacated the full title as expected, meaning the winner of the first fight likely would have been elevated to world champion had they won the strap. The WBO has since sanctioned the upcoming Cotto/Kamegai for their title so it seems unlikely that a belt will be back up here in the rematch, but then again they probably do not expect Kamegai to win or Cotto to ever both defending so maybe it could be.
