Big time boxing is back Saturday night after over a month long hiatus from our lives. Errol Spence Jr will make the first defense of his IBF welterweight title in the show’s main event against Lamont Peterson. Robert Easter Jr will defend the lightweight version of the same belt in the co-main event against Javier Fortuna.
It is interesting looking back on the earlier days of the Peterson brothers, back before and when they were promoted by Top Rank. Anthony was the exciting one. He delivered the power, action, and was considered by most to be the brother with the real big time potential. Lamont Peterson (35-3-1, 17 KOs) was the smooth boxer. He was the brother he put on the boring fights and didn’t hurt his opponents. Anthony Peterson still fights and is in fact deep on this undercard, but he might as well have vanished after one bad night against Brandon Rios. Lamont did not vanish. Instead, he reinvented himself.
The first time Lamont Peterson stepped up to world level, he was largely dominated by Timothy Bradley. He showed some fire and gameness that night, however, and that carried over to his next big fight against Victor Ortiz. Peterson was hurt and battered early in that fight, but he put his head down and pushed forward to earn a draw. Two fights later, Lamont Peterson the pressure fighter fully emerged in his big upset win over Amir Khan thanks to his late rounds rally in which he basically just decided to hulk out and attack. Unfortunately, this style didn’t suit fighting a destroyer like Lucas Matthysse two fights later and Peterson was destroyed.
Yet, he has rebounded really well. Lamont is on a two fight winning streak against good fighters in Felix Diaz and David Avanesyan. He is 4-1 since the Matthysse debacle and that one loss was against Danny Garcia in which he for some reason did not start fighting until late. Peterson dominated the last third of that fight and it seemed like he could have won only had he started sooner.
Of course, Errol Spence Jr (22-0, 19 KOs) is something different than Danny Garcia. Spence had been considered a top prospect in the sport since the 2012 Olympic games. The 28 year old Texan has delivered on that promise too. After emerging as a contender in 2016 following absolutely dominant wins over Chris Algieri and Leonard Bundu, Spence rallied from an early deficit last May to literally break Kell Brook’s face on his way to a stoppage win on the road in Sheffield, England. That night netted Errol his IBF belt and cemented his status as one of the top fighter’s in the sport.
His story isn’t as long as Lamont’s, but that is because it is simple. Errol Spence Jr has been dominant against everyone except a truly world class talent in Kell Brook. In the end, Spence stopped him too. I don’t think Lamont Peterson is as good as Kell Brook either, not even particularly close to as good really. On top of that, Spence is more than willing to come forward and pressure. While he is more nuanced than a seek and destroy kind of guy like Lucas Matthysse, I can’t help but flash back to that fight. If Peterson is going to relentlessly pressure, he might meet a similar fate as he did that night. If Peterson doesn’t, I am afraid this will look like the first half of the Danny Garcia fight with the challenger just giving away rounds.
Basically, I don’t necessarily see an avenue to victory here for Lamont Peterson. He just plain isn’t as good as Errol Spence Jr. Sometimes styles can make up for class differences, but here I think the styles of the two combatants only make things worse for the Washington DC fighter. I expect Lamont to get stopped for the second time, probably in the last quarter of the fight, and for Errol Spence Jr to have his hand raised.
Neither of the co-main event’s participants in Robert Easter Jr (20-0, 14 KOs) nor Javier Fortuna (33-1-1, 23 KOs) have quite delivered on the highest levels of their hype, though they are both good fighters. Easter’s IBF lightweight strap will be on the line here. The Toledo star is an interesting study, really. From 2015 to his title fight with Richard Commey near the end of 2016, Easter was considered one of the best prospects in boxing. Commey, the other half of the vacant title fight, was only known to the most hardcore fans. The two put on an excellent fight that Robert got the decision on but could have gone either way with Easter touching the canvas eighth.
Next came a dominant first victory lap defense at home against overmatched Luis Cruz. The IBF titleholder put Cruz down in each of the last three rounds, but the matchup was uninspiring and Easter didn’t make a big statement with it. Toledo was good to its favorite son last time out too. Russian contender Denis Shafikov came to town and put on a really solid performance in pushing Easter to the brink. Like the Commey fight, I would have had no problem with either guy getting the decision. Sadly and comically, the scorecards came back absurdly wide in the hometown heroe’s favor as they have so many times in the history of the sport.
Shafikov and Commey are good fighters, real good fighters even, but they have also highlighted that Robert Easter Jr is not necessarily going to be a pound for pound contender. To complicate matters of my perception of him even more, Shafikov went on to lose to Rene Alvarado in his next fight. Now he was weight drained from dropping down a weight class and there was some questionable officiating in that fight, but it still doesn’t reflect well on Easter. Alvarado is not elite. I also don’t like his close relationship with Adrien Broner, a loose cannon of an undisciplined man no aspiring pound for pound elite should model his life after.
Javier Fortuna was brought to America to pursue his career by Sampson Lewkowicz, the same man who discovered Manny Pacquiao and Sergio Martinez. Given his quick southpaw style combined with this origin, the Dominican developed some buzz quickly in his stateside career. He even won a secondary world title, though he lost it in what was then an upset to Jason Sosa. The last time he was on American soil or television was in November of 2016. Despite earning a win over a pretty good fighter in Omar Douglas, Fortuna had to resort to stinking up the joint with a clinchfest to come back to win after getting rocked and dropped early. That marked the end of the hype for Javier Fortuna.
One other thing to note here is size. Robert Easter Jr is a massive lightweight while Fortuna wasn’t a huge junior lightweight and is only just really moving up. Easter has shown himself flawed enough for this to be competitive given Fortuna’s athletic gifts, but I don’t think it really will be. Fortuna isn’t as big or strong as either Shafikov nor Commey were. He probably isn’t as good all around either. My expectation is that Easter controls this one with his length. It is a dangerous bet because he hasn’t really been able to use that advantage well in his last few fights, but I also expect Fortuna to press less than his previous opponents.
Emerging PBC contenders in light heavyweight Marcus Browne (20-0, 15 KOs) and Polish heavyweight Adam Kownacki (16-0, 13 KOs) are also in action. Showtime will broadcast these two fights on its Youtube channel before the main card. I’ll miss the ease of watching the seemingly dead ShoExtreme prelim broadcasts on my DVR, but Youtube is more accessible and probably better for it. Browne will meet Francy Ntetu (17-1, 4 KOs) and Kownacki will fight Iago Kiladze (26-1, 18 KOs). These are both record building mismatches. Ntetu can box a bit and probably is a lateral move compared to Browne’s last opponent in the obliteration of Long Island draw Seanie Monaghan, but Kownacki is definitely taking a step down from the likes of Artur Szpilka here. Kiladze’s ledger is entirely hollow.
The main card portion of the event will air live from the Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn at 9 PM Eastern on Showtime. Unfortunately, I do not have a time yet for the start of the Youtube stream. Anthony Peterson, Sergiy Derevyanchenko, Ivan Golub, and a few interesting prospects are also in action before the broadcasts. I wish PBC would use something like Youtube to air their entire cards like Top Rank and Golden Boy do with their ESPN shows on WatchESPN, but they’ve never done it previously.
