The last few days of the active boxing year have brought us several prominent fight announcements. Mikey Garcia will be going for a world title in his fourth weight class in the biggest of the fights. Robert Easter Jr, Zolani Tete, and Jerwin Ancajas all have defenses schedule too. Plus, we have our Super Fly 2 co-main event.
- Robert Easter Jr (20-0, 14 KOs) will defend his IBF lightweight title on the undercard of Errol Spence Jr’s welterweight title defense against Lamont Peterson on January 20th. The show will, of course, be broadcast by Showtime. Easter will be in against Javier Fortuna (33-1-1, 23 KOs). The Dominican challenger is a good fighter, but he has been stopped by worse guys than Easter and has never fought a top opponent up at lightweight. It is unclear if this is going to become a more usual Showtime tripleheader or if this will remain a two fight show.
- Filipino IBF super flyweight titleholder Jerwin Ancajas (28-1-1, 19 KOs) is reportedly about to sign with Top Rank. He already has his next defense scheduled for Top Rank’s February 3rd Gilberto Ramirez title defense card in Corpus Christi, Texas. His opponent will be fringe contender Israel Gonzalez (21-1, 8 KOs) of Mexico. That is not a great fight and it is disappointing that this will remove Ancajas from being able to join HBO’s great super flyweight carousel, but at least he will be able to be active on major televised shows going forward. Ancajas is a real underrated fighter.
- In a major announcement from Premier Boxing Champions, pound for pound elite Miguel “Mikey” Garcia (37-0, 30 KOs) will be looking for a belt in his fourth weight class when he takes on new IBF junior welterweight titleholder Sergey Lipinets (13-0, 10 KOs) February 10th in San Antonio on Showtime. Mikey Garcia is a tough ask for a relative novice like Lipinets, but it should be a fun one while it lasts. The Russian does have some real talent.
- In support of that bout, PBC has also announced a rematch between Rances Barthelemy (26-0, 13 KOs) and Kiryl Relikh (21-2, 19 KOs) for the WBA’s Terence Crawford vacated 140 lb title. These two first met in May in a fight won by the Cuban Barthelemy via controversial decision, though I should note that I didn’t have much of a problem with it. I don’t have a problem with this rematch either, however, as it was a fun fight the first time around. Rances Barthelemy will become a three division titleholder should he prevail once more.
- Also on February 10th but in the UK, WBO bantamweight titleholder Zolani Tete (26-3, 21 KOs) will defend his belt against 42 year old former two division titlist Omar Narvaez (47-2-2, 25 KOs) of Argentina. Despite his age, Narvaez is coming off a great win over then unbeaten Russian Nikolai Potapov to earn this shot. Tete is coming off an eleven second knockout win himself, but it was against a clearly overmatched opponent. Narvaez should be a better test.
- Finally, February 24th’s Super Fly sequel card on HBO now has a co-main event. Top contenders Carlos Cuadras (36-2-1, 27 KOs) and McWilliams Arroyo (16-3, 14 KO) will meet in what is a really good stylistic matchup. This could be another high action entry into the classic rivalry between Mexico and Puerto Rico. Hopefully they get a good third fight to add to the show. Either way, I look forward to it.
