With this past weekend’s void behind us, we have some real fights this week. Next weekend finally brings us GGG and Canelo, but first we have an amazing Super Flyweight themed card on HBO Saturday night to serve as a week in advance appetizer. The World Boxing Super Series also starts, plus there is a title fight on Showtime Friday night.
Friday, September 8th
David Benavidez (18-0, 17 KOs) v Ronald Gavril (18-1, 14 KOs), WBC super middleweight title & Caleb Plant (15-0, 10 KOs) v Alan Campa (16-3, 11 KOs), super middleweights & J’Leon Love (23-1, 13 KOs) v Abraham Ham (26-3, 16 KOs), super middleweights – Showtime, 10 PM Eastern – Nevada
This is basically a glorified ShoBox, but I suppose PBC wouldn’t want their name associated with that brand so instead we have a Showtime Boxing Friday Night Special! 20 year old Benavidez is a great, great prospect and will be a worthy titleholder, but this is a walkover on paper. Plant is a decent, but somewhat dull prospect in at the same level he has been in at. Love is a once busted prospect they are trying to rebuild. Basically this a ShoBox with better names are worse matched fights. But hey, there are worse ways for a fight fan to spend a night than watch David Benavidez destroy someone.
Saturday, September 9th
Oleksandr Usyk (12-0, 10 KOs) v Marco Huck (40-4-1, 27 KOs), WBO cruiserweight title – World Boxing Super Series – Germany
I am really hoping for a last minute World Boxing Super Series US television deal, but it isn’t looking good. It will be a real shame if piracy is our only way to watch the two tournaments. This is the first fight in either of them. The now great Usyk should pretty easily work over the once great Huck, but it still a good matchup between top cruiserweights. Passing of the torch type fights are always welcome so as long as the previous generation fighter isn’t shot. Huck is not, though he is diminished.
Srisaket Sor Rungvisai (43-4-1, 39 KOs) v Chocolatito Gonzales (46-1, 38 KOs) II, WBC super flyweight title & Naoya Inoue (13-0, 11 KOs) v Antonio Nieves (17-1-2, 9 KOs), WBO super flyweight title & Carlos Cuadras (36-1-1, 17 KOs) v Juan Francisco Estrada (35-2, 25 KOs), super flyweights – HBO, 10 PM Eastern – California
This card is amazing. Five of my top six super flyweights and two of the four titles are in action here and for my money that is the best division in the sport right now. Chocolatito will look to avenge his closely contested but still controversial decision loss to Thailand’s Sor Rungvisai in the main event. Japanese sensation Naoya “Monster” Inoue makes his highly anticipated US debut in the co-main event and the opening bout is a great one pitting two top contenders in the division against one another. This is one of the best on paper cards of the year.
Elio Rojas (24-3, 14 KOs v Bryant Cruz (17-2, 8 KOs), lightweights & Ian Green (12-1, 9 KOs) v Kemahl Russell (11-1, 9 KOs), middleweights – CBS Sports Network, 11 PM Eastern – New York
You can always count on CBS Sports Network to bring the random. From 2009-2012, Rojas was a world titleholder at featherweight. He was inactive even then, but has been even moreso since losing the belt to Johnny Gonzales. This will only be his third fight in over five years. You might remember him most recently as Mikey Garcia’s crash test dummy in his return from his own layoff. Cruz is a fringe contender at best, but Rojas is past it and up too far in weight probably so this is a weirdly well matched fight. Once beaten middleweight prospects meet in the co-feature. Green has gotten some ShoBox exposure while Russell the same from PBC. I actually thought Kemahl looked okay early in his stoppage loss to Sergiy Derevyanchenko, so this is a weirdly interesting card for how insignificant it is.
