Sixteen days out from the event itself, we have a full undercard lineup for Floyd Mayweather’s return against MMA superstar Conor McGregor. We also have two more dates for World Boxing Super Series fights, a Top Rank on ESPN featuring a world title fight, and a lot more than that even. It has been a busy week for scheduling fights.
The August 26th Mayweather/McGregor card is being divided into two segments. First there will be a two fight FOX prelims card headlined by top welterweight “Showtime” Shawn Porter (27-2-1, 17 KOs) in a stay busy fight against former busted Puerto Rican prospect Thomas Dulorme (24-2, 16 KOs). Porter should roll here. More interesting is the opener here pitting two unbeaten PBC junior welterweight prospects in Juan Heraldez (12-0, 8 KOs) and Jose Miguel Borrego (13-0, 12 KOs) against one another. 19 year old Borrego is the bigger prospect here, but this is a step up for him.
Following the FOX broadcast will be the Showtime PPV. Headlining that section of the undercard will be IBF junior lightweight titleholder Gervonta Davis (18-0, 17 KOs) taking a soft first defense of his title against little known Costa Rican Francisco Fonseca (17-0, 13 KOs). The real meat of this undercard is found in its middle fight, however, where Nathan Cleverly (30-3, 16 KOs) greets former top super middleweight Badou Jack (21-1-2, 12 KOs) in his light heavyweight debut. This is an excellent fight. Opening the PPV will be a be a crossroads fight when cruiserweight prospect Andrew Tabiti (14-0, 12 KOs) meets good old Steve Cunningham (29-8-1, 13 KOs) in a big step up for Tabiti.
As for the World Series of Boxing, Yunier Dorticos (21-0, 20 KOs) and Dmitry Kudryashov (21-1, 21 KOs) will meet September 23rd while Chris Eubank Jr (25-1, 19 KOs) and Avni Yildirim (16-0, 10 KOs) will do the same on October 7th in Texas and Germany respectively. Yes, you read that right. Dorticos and Kudryashov fight in San Antonio. Why? I have no idea.
Jessie Magdaleno (25-0, 18 KOs) has a WBO super bantamweight title defense set for Halloween on ESPN against the always tough but somewhat limited Cesar Juarez (20-5, 15 KOs). Supporting that fight will be the return of Artur Beterbiev (11-0, 10 KOs) against German Enrico Koelling (23-1, 6 KOs) in an IBF light heavyweight eliminator. Magdaleno and Beterbiev should be favored here, but Juarez at least is no push over.
Two weeks before that Golden Boy will put a smaller card on ESPN2 main evented by Fidel Maldonado Jr (24-3-1, 19 KOs) against former title challenger Ismael Barroso (19-1-2, 18 KOs). By the somewhat low standards of the series, this is a pretty good fight. Pablo Cesar Cano (30-6-1, 21 KOs), who just lost to Maldanado, will have chief support against largely unknown Argentinian Marcelino Lopez (32-2-1, 17 KOs).
Finally, in British boxing news, Sam Eggington (21-2, 13 KOs) will defend his European welterweight title against Mohamed Mimoune (18-2, 2 KOs) on the October 7th undercard of Anthony Crolla versus Ricky Burns. Top light heavyweight prospect Anthony Yarde (12-0, 11 KOs) will be back sooner against former MMA fighter Ryan Ford (12-0, 7 KOs) on September 16th for a minor title.
Overall, that is a decent bunch of fights. The late summer and fall schedule is starting to fill out for the sport.