Another PBC presented Toe to Toe Tuesday on FS1 is going down tonight. Unfortunately, this is one of the worst kinds of those cards. PBC junior welterweight prospect Mario Barrios will fight little known Naim Nelson of Philadelphia, a complete uninteresting mismatch on paper. The co-main event light heavyweight bout between Earl Newman and Paul Parker is marginally better at least.
For a brief bit of time, Mario Barrios (19-0, 11 KOs) was a really interesting junior lightweight prospect. At 5’11”, he had some clear advantages at 130 pounds. It turns out he could only make that weight due to youth, however, and at 22 years old he has already been pushed up to 140 lbs at junior welterweight. At this weight he is a much more mediocre prospect that Al Haymon and his PBC team keep insisting on putting on television in complete mismatches.
Philadelphia’s Naim Nelson (13-3, 1 KO) is no different. He is 1-3 in his last four, for example. While two of those did come against Mickey Bey and Alejandro Luna, most recently in April he lost to a 7-3 club fighter. It is confusing why the PBC team keeps subjecting us to this. Consistent mismatches is not generally how they match their prospects, at least not all of them. That is more of a Top Rank ploy. Do they not believe in Barrios? If not, then why keep showcasing him? I do not understand.
Regardless, that is our main event tonight. In the co-main event, Brooklyn’s undefeated light heavyweight Earl Newman (10-0, 7 KOs) is matched with Paul “PPV” Parker (8-2, 4 KOs). I can’t profess to know much about Newman, but he is really getting tested here. While PPV Parker hasn’t lived up to his nickname, his two losses have come against Sullivan Barrera and Vyacheslav Shabranskyy in fights against real contenders that came way too early in his career. Despite the stoppages losses, he was very game. He put Shabranskyy down twice and did moderately better against Barerra than one might expect. Newman is in for a clear step up in competition here.
