HBO’s Boxing After Dark returns Saturday night with a split site tripleheader from both upstate New York and Northern Ireland. The main event from Belfast is a title fight with Ryan Burnett and Zhanat Zhakiyanov unifying two bantamweight belts. Jezreel Corrales will be defending his junior lightweight strap against Alberto Machado in the American based main event. This is my look at the American side fights.
Jezreel Corrales (22-1, 8 KOs) wasn’t ever supposed to become a world titleholder. When he traveled to Japan to face longtime titlist Takashi Uchiyama, he was an afterthought of a mandatory challenger. Less than two rounds later, he was a champion. In one fight, Corrales went from an unknown South American scene fighter to a world level operator. He confirmed the win some months later with a decision win on the same turf.
Puerto Rican prospect Albert Machado (18-0, 15 KOs) has not made that transition yet. Machado has been promoted by Miguel Cotto’s small island outfit, but Golden Boy essentially inherited him when they signed Cotto. Machado is here just as much as a tribute to Golden Boy’s relatively thin stable as he is to earning it. Moreso, really. That doesn’t mean he can’t fight though.
Machado has been given one stage by Golden Boy so far when they had him main event a show in their ESPN series. While he dropped his opponent and won comfortably, he also failed to excite and looked a little clumsy at times. Still, there is hope for the prospect. Last time out for the titleholder, Corrales was caught multiple times by Robinston Castellanos. Twice he was hurt and dropped. While he escaped with a narrow technical decision, he probably won’t if the Puerto Rican lands the same shots. Alberto Machado can really punch.
I can’t favor him though. While there are other wildcards at work here such as both being southpaws and neither having much experience against them, there is one glaring detail here that jumps out at me. In his August fight, Alberto went ten rounds. In his previous seventeen fights, he averaged about two rounds a fight. He isn’t likely to be able to cruise through this comfortably like in August and I cannot count on him to be strong late. It feels like an early knockout or bust for the Cotto promoted prospect. I am strongly leaning bust.
In the co-main event, extremely talented but frustratingly inactive former junior middleweight titleholder Demetrius Andrade (24-0, 16 KOs) moves to middleweight against fellow unbeaten Alantez Fox (23-0-1, 11 KOs). Andrade has twice lost junior middleweight titles to inactivity, not to mention years of his prime. At times he has just looked pretty good like last time out in Germany against Jack Culcay, but at other times Andrade has looked downright spectacular like he did the fight before against Willie Nelson.
His well documented problem is found in the fact this will only be this third fight in a year and a half. He just doesn’t get in the ring. The signing with HBO and the move to middleweight implies a desire to jump into the crowded HBO middleweight field, but we’ll see if he bothers to actually get in with any of them.
Here Andrade is in against Maryland prospect Alantez Fox. On resume and to the eye test it isn’t all that compelling of a fight, but Fox’s pure size cannot be underestimated. At 6’4″ with a near 80″ rich, Fox is a ridiculously massive middleweight. For Andrade to meet maybe the biggest middleweight there is in his divisional debut when moving up is a non-traditional move to say the least. I still don’t expect him to have a problem as I believe in the talent of Demetrius Andrade, but size is a real potential factor here.
The show begins at 10 PM Eastern on HBO. It will start with a tape delayed broadcast of the bantamweight unification fight in Belfast. If you don’t want spoilers for that site, feel free to stick around here. I won’t be covering it until the HBO show airs. Do not expect that on other boxing sites and certainly avoid social media.
