This week in boxing features five significant cards and four world title fights. Toe to Toe Tuesday on FS1 launches the week before we get a Top Rank title doubleheader on ESPN Friday. Then, on Saturday, we have a heavyweight title fight, an HBO card featuring a lightweight title fight, and a potentially really fun World Boxing Super Series cruiserweight quarterfinal. This turned into quite the busy week.
Tuesday, September 19th
Mario Barrios (19-0, 11 KOs) v Naim Nelson (13-3, 1 KO), junior welterweights & Earl Newman (10-0, 7 KOs) v Paul Parker (8-2, 4 KOs), light heavyweights – Pennsylvania – PBC on FS1, 10 PM Eastern
PBC occasionally insists on airing these Mario Barrios squash matches. It is kind of weird because they do not match their prospects overall this weakly, but Barrios is always in this sort of pointless fight. If they don’t believe in him, why waste the air time? This is a poor card, though the Newman/Parker co-feature is an interesting test for Newman. Parker is better than his record suggests.
Friday, September 22nd
Oscar Valdez (22-0, 19 KOs) v Genesis Servania (29-0, 12 KOs), WBO featherweight title & Gilberto Ramirez (35-0, 24 KOs) v Jesse Hart (22-0, 18 KOs), WBO super middleweight title – Arizona – Top Rank on ESPN, 10:30 PM Eastern
Top Rank returns to ESPN Friday night with a world title doubleheader. Oscar Valdez gets the headline as he is the star Top Rank seems to want to build the most, but his opponent is pretty uninspiring. Gilberto Ramirez is in much better versus Jesse Hart, though he is still a big favorite. The card starts even earlier on the WatchESPN app at 7 PM and will feature significant Top Rank prospects such as popular Irish prospect Michael Conlan as a well as a pair of Rio gold medalists in Robson Conceicao and Fazliddin Gaibnazarov.
Saturday, September 23rd
Joseph Parker (23-0, 18 KOs) v Hughie Fury (20-0, 10 KOs), WBO heavyweight title – England – Youtube
This is a legitimate heavyweight title fight between two good, young heavyweights and it is being handled terribly from a promotional standpoint. It will be available in the UK as a Youtube PPV. Elsewhere? Unclear! Hopefully this is sorted out and clarified over the next few days.
Jorge Linares (42-3, 27 KOs) v Luke Campbell (17-1, 14 KOs), WBA lightweight title & Antonio Orozco (26-0, 17 KOs) v Roberto Ortiz (35-1-2, 26 KOs), junior welterweights – California – HBO World Championship Boxing, 10 PM Eastern
Jorge Linares returns to HBO with a pretty good defense against British Olympic gold medalist Luke Campbell. This should be an interesting and entertaining world title fight of a main event. Orozco/Ortiz is not a particularly inspiring co-main event as Roberto Ortiz is coming off a pretty mediocre draw on the Mexican regional scene, but both Golden Boy and HBO are in need of HBO worthy fighters so there will be an effort to build Orozco here I am sure.
Yunier Dorticos (21-0, 20 KOs) v Dmitry Kudryashov (21-1, 21 KOs), WBSS cruiserweight quarterfinal & Nonito Donaire (37-4, 24 KOs) v Ruben Garcia (22-2-1, 9 KOs), featherweights – San Antonio – worldboxingsuperseries.com
The second fight of the World Boxing Super Series cruiserweight bracket will almost assuredly feature a knockout. In the 43 combined fights between Yunier Dorticos and Dmitry Kudryashov, only one has gone the distance. The winner will face Oleksandr Usyk in the semi-finals. Nonito Donaire is also set to return on the undercard. They don’t really advertise it, but the first two WBSS fights were live streamed on their website for the US audience so I am anticipating the same here. This one could be the fight of the weekend.
