Bookings: Kell Brook, World Boxing Super Series, and more

December 12, 2017
Oleksandr Usyk, Mairis Briedis, Boxing

The final month of 2017 has brought us a few more fight announcements for early in the new year. We have a comeback date and opponent for Kell Brook, a pair of World Boxing Super Series semifinals dates, and an intriguing Top Rank on ESPN to report. Here is to 2018 being even close to as good as 2017 was in the sport.

  • On January 27th, WBO titleholder and top ranked cruiserweight Oleksandr Usyk (13-0, 11 KOs) will unify with WBC titleholder Mairis Briedis (23-0, 18 KOs) in the semifinal round of the World Boxing Super Series cruiserweight tournament. As good as Usyk is, he doesn’t really have a lucrative home base to fight out of. Accordingly, Briedis will get homefield advantage in Latvia.
  • The winner of that fight will meet February 3rd’s winner between IBF titlist Murat Gassiev (25-0, 18 KOs) and WBA secondary belt holder Yunier Dorticos (22-0, 21 KOs) in the WBSS cruiserweight finals. Gassiev’s home of Russia will host this semifinal bout. Both these matchups are really great fights. It is a crying shame at this point that they have no widely available US distribution. Sorry Audience Network, but these fights are just better than you.
  • Kell Brook (36-2, 25 KOs) will return from having his face broken a second time on March 3rd at home in Sheffield, England. As should be expected, Brook will be returning down at Euro level against former European titleholder Sergey Rabchenko (29-2, 22 KOs). Rabchenko isn’t a total pushover if Brook isn’t all there anymore, but he is a routine win for true world level guys and therefore a good barometer to measure the Sheffield man’s current level.
  • Finally, on March 17th, Top Rank on ESPN returns headlined by a really good vacant junior welterweight title fight between rapidly rising star Jose Ramirez (21-0, 16 KOs) and Amir Imam (21-1, 18 KOs). This is an excellent matchup between quality young fighters that will fill Terence Crawford’s WBC vacancy with a deserving new belt holder. Top Irish prospect Michael Conlan (5-0, 4 KOs) will have the co-main event slot as the 17th is St. Patrick’s Day.

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