Lost a bit in the Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez mega pay per view was the announcement from HBO that they would be airing the upcoming October 21st bantamweight unification bout between Ryan Burnett and Zhanat Zhakiyanov. This will be paired with Jezreel Corrales’s junior lightweight defense against Alberto Machado.
Zhanat Zhakiyanov (27-1, 18 KOs) of Kazakhstan won his WBA belt via split decision over Rau’shee Warren in February while Northern Ireland’s Ryan Burnett (17-0, 9 KOs) won his IBF version with a dominant decision over Lee Haskins in June. Unification here was definitely a pleasant surprise in both their first defenses.
Presumably HBO will be calling this over monitors rather than sending a separate crew to Northern Ireland as this isn’t a huge fight. Panama’s Jezreel Corrales (21-1, 8 KOs) will defend his WBA junior lightweight strap against Puerto Rican prospect Alberto Machado (18-0, 15 KOs) in the televised main event from Verona, NY. There is talk that HBO is also attempting to maneuver talented but inactive junior middleweight Demetrius Andrade (24-0, 16 KOs) onto the card for a defense of his secondary title, but no opponent has been found as of yet.
The HBO double or maybe tripleheader will air October 21st at 10 PM Eastern.
