We have a whole bunch of recently booked fights to report. Headlining the news, Carl Frampton and Zolani Tete now have opponents for their November 18th matches in Northern Ireland. There will also be a PBC card with Anthony Dirrell in its main event. Plus, we have a date for Sullivan Barrera’s next fight, some general booking news, and a decent sized rumor involving Danny Garcia’s potential next opponent.
In the November 18th BT Sport main event, popular former two division titleholder Carl Frampton (23-1, 14 KOs) will meet Mexican domestic level fighter Horacio Garcia (33-3-1, 24 KOs) over ten rounds. This will be an easy night for Frampton as Garcia has been completely shut down against all world level opposition he has previously faced. Shower accident victim Andres Gutierrez would have been a better opponent than this, even, but not much more could be expected from a homecoming tuneup I suppose.
WBO bantamweight titlist Zolani Tete (25-3, 20 KOs) will take a bizarrely low level title defense on the undercard against inexperienced, unknown South African non-contender Siboniso Gonya (11-1, 5 KOs) in an even worse fight than the main event. How this got sanctioned, I’ll never understand. Gonya has been inactive, beaten no one of note, and lost at a really low level. Now he is a world title challenger.
Anthony Dirrell (30-1-1, 24 KOs) is getting less than glamorous return for a fighter of his stature in a PBC on FS1, Toe-to-Toe Tuesday slot on November 17th against Dennis Doughlin (20-5, 13 KOs). Why Dirrell, winner of three straight, is meeting a man knocked out by David Benavidez last time out, I don’t know. I guess for an easy homecoming fight in Flint, Michigan, much like what Frampton is doing over in Belfast.
Sullivan Barrera (21-1, 14 KOs) is returning on the Sergey Kovalev versus Vyacheslav Shabranskyy HBO undercard on November 25th. No opponent has been named yet, but the fight will be televised.
Top Rank has gone on record to say that have a February 3rd ESPN date, which is a big one as it is the night before the Super Bowl. It will be interesting to see what they do there.
Finally, we might get one more pretty big fight in before the New Year as rumors are swirling than an announcement of a bout between former titleholders Danny Garcia (33-1, 19 KOs) and Brandon Rios (34-3-1, 25 KO’s) is imminent. Rios is pretty well past it so he figures to be an easy comeback fight with some name value for Garcia following his first career loss to Keith Thurman, but stylistically it still figures to be a reasonably entertaining bout. I mean it is no Rod Salka fight, but life cannot always live up to those lofty standards.
Source: BoxingScene.com
