Top Rank now has a September 22nd ESPN date for two of their top young fighters. In the main event, WBO featherweight titleholder Oscar Valdez will defend against Filipino Genesis Servania while Gilberto Ramirez will defend his WBO super middleweight belt against Jesse Hart in the co-feature. The co-main event here is the much better fight.
26 year old Oscar Valdez (22-0, 19 KOs) is being pushed hard as a star by Top Rank. It is easy to see why too as he is an exciting, talented young fighter. Yet, they keep matching him fairly soft where where he should be in his career. Genesis Servania (29-0, 12 KOs), 25, is a largely unknown quantity coming out of the Philippines. I don’t have him anywhere near my featherweight top 25 despite his gaudy record whereas I have Valdez seventh in a very good division.
If it weren’t for Top Rank’s commitment to pushing Valdez as a star, Gilberto Ramirez’s (35-0, 24 KOs) defense against Jesse Hart (22-0, 18 KOs) would have the main event here on merit. In an admittedly weaker division, I have the 26 year old Ramirez ranked second and 28 year old Hart sixteenth. Ramirez will still be heavily favored here, however. Hopefully he brings a little more excitement here too as his last few fights have been viewed as dull, which is partly why he isn’t the pushed fighter here.
Also tentatively scheduled is a stay busy fight for Puerto Rican prospect Felix Verdejo. His first world title shot just fell through on him and he needs a fight now. Heavily promoted Irish prospect Michael Conlan is also expected to appear here. Neither of those names are confirmed as of yet, however.
This will be Top Rank’s fourth card using ESPN as their main outlet. I expect, like the others, that it will begin at 10 PM Eastern. It is unclear if either Verdejo or Conlan would be aired, but if they are on the card I imagine they will at least be on the WatchESPN app stream. The fights will take place in Tucscon, Arizon.
