A pair of quality matchups main eventing separate cards in the United Kingdom should have the attention of fight fans worldwide this weekend. In one, Scottish super prospect Josh Taylor gets a very stiff test at home against perennial stinker Miguel Vasquez. Can he still look good in that fight? Also, in England, Liam Smith and Liam Williams rematch their controversial first fight from April.
When Liam Smith (25-1-1, 14 KOs) and Liam Williams (16-1-1, 11 KOs) met in the original Liambowl, Smith began the whole thing by missing weight in his first fight back from his spirited loss to superstar Canelo Alvarez. He followed that up by doing quite poorly early. Williams was able to cleanly outbox him over the first half of the contest.
While Smith was getting back in the fight late, no one had him up when the fight was stop due to a nasty double laceration on Williams’s eye lid. Yet, because the cut was ruled to be from punches, Liam Smith walked away while snatching victory from what looked like a defeat at least partially on chance. It was a controversial, unsatisfying ending to what was an ntertaining fight until it got to that point.
Box Nation will have the rematch beginning at 2 PM Eastern, which is 7 local time. Prospects Thomas Patrick Ward (21-0, 2 KOs) and Nathan Gorman (10-0, 8 KOs) fight on the undercard at featherweight and heavyweight respectively.
Channel 5 will carry the Scottish card, but not until 4:45 PM Eastern (9:45 local) because it appears they are only showing the main event. In it, emerging local star Josh Taylor (10-0, 9 KOs) will look to keep his rise through the junior welterweight division ongoing. Last time out, Taylor met then fellow unbeaten prospect Ohara Davies in one of those fun early career prospect fights that sometimes happen thanks to the existence of the British titles.
Taylor absolutely dominated what was supposed to be an even fight that night, looking every bit like a potential future star in the sport. It might be difficult to do that again against Miguel Vasquez (39-5, 15 KOs), however. Vasquez is not only a good fighter, but he is a stinker too for a lack of a better term. He is not afraid to make for a tedious fight to watch by completely nullifying his opponent’s offense while doing just barely more than the nothing himself to win the rounds.
It is a style that has worked well for him in terms of results, albeit down at lightweight where he won a world title and then defended it seven times. It wasn’t a world beating reign, but he did score a good win over Denis Shafikov before losing the title. Vasquez, in defiance of every boxing Mexican stereotype, will not be looking to make this an entertaining showcase for Taylor. If the Scottish prospect looks great here like he did last time out, it will truly be time to get real excited about his prospects.
There are no prominent undercard bouts on this show.
