There has been a flurry of activity in the boxing world over the last few days as an assortment of fights have been both made and unmade. The World Boxing Super Series has seen its first major shake up take place in the super middleweight division, world title fights have been added to a prominent Japanese card, Gervonta Davis has a new rumored opponent, an HBO card has been finalized, and more.
- The World Boxing Super Series has officially had its first withdrawal. Longtime German contender Juergen Braehmer has had to drop out of this weekend’s semifinal fight with Callum Smith (23-0, 17 KOs) due to some sort of serious infection. With less than a week’s notice, the tournament has at least found a reasonable replacement. They are slotting in former Glory kickboxing champion Nieky Holzken (13-0, 10 KOs). Smith should handle him, but Holzken can fight and the idea of a truly elite kickboxer in a boxing match against someone on the level of a Callum Smith at least brings its own kind of intrigue. Plus, Holzken is coming off a surprisingly quick two round dismissal of former Olympian and decent European level operator Viktor Polyakov. This development is certainly a disappointment, but it could have been worse.
- March 24th is set to bring us a nice European title fight between slick boxing Brit Bradley Skeete (27-1, 12 KOs) and power punching Spaniard Kerman Lejarraga (24-0, 19 KOs). With both of these welterweights looking to step up to the world title levels of the sport, this fight marks an excellent opportunity for one of them to move up the rankings. Skeete, the better known of the two thanks to his reign as British titleholder that included a win over Sam Eggington, will have to travel to Spain for this fight.
- Ryota Murata’s April 15th defense of his secondary world title has become a tripleheader. Exciting young power puncher Daigo Higa (15-0, 15 KOs) will defend his WBC flyweight title against Nicaraguan contender Cristofer Rosales (26-3, 17 KOs) while WBC light flyweight titleholder Ken Shiro (12-0, 6 KOs) will engage Ganigan Lopez (28-7, 17 KOs) in a rematch of their highly competitive first fight from May in which Shiro took a majority decision win. Both of these are reasonable matchups, but both will also find the local Japanese draws as heavy favorites.
- It has long been thought that Gervonta Davis (19-0, 18 KOs) was going to get an opportunity to regain the IBF junior lightweight belt that he lost on the scales by meeting former titleholder Billy Dib in a battle for the now vacant strap, but ESPN’s Dan Rafael is reporting that this is no longer the plan. Now it looks like his April 21st date is going to find Tank Davis in against Jesus Cuellar (28-2, 21 KOs) for a secondary junior lightweight title sanctioned by the WBA. That organization has promised to quit making these belts, but here they are creating one for a fight in which one half of it has never even fought in the division. Oh, WBA. Regardless, I actually like this fight better anyway. Dib can be a horrible watch and Cuellar was a decent featherweight.
- Speaking of tournaments, the WBC and Evander Holyfield’s Real Deal Promotions are putting on a welterweight tournament set to begin on April 27th. Participating fighters will be Felix Diaz (19-2, 9 KO), Chris Van Heerden (25-2-1, 12 KO), Fredrick Lawson (26-1, 21 KO), Radzhab Butaev (8-0, 6 KO), Brad Solomon (27-1, 9 KO), Timo Schwarzkopf (18-1, 10 KO), Derrieck Cuevas (16-0-1, 13 KO), and Baishanbo Nasiyiwula (13-1-1, 6 KO). Obviously this isn’t world level stuff, but the winner of the event will come out as a nice contender on a decent three fight winning streak. The best talents are are Diaz, who has been borderline world level, Solomon, and Butaev in my view. I have no problem with this idea. You can vote on what the first round matchups should be on Real Deal Promotion’s websites if you care to.
- I talked about the shifting discussions about HBO’s April 28th card featuring Danny Jacobs (33-2, 29 KOs) and Jarrell Miller (20-0-1, 18 KOs) recently. The second set of reports turned out to be the right ones. They now will officially meet Maciej Sulecki (26-0, 10 KOs) and Johann Duhaupas (37-4, 24 KOs) respectively. Sulecki is a quality fighter and a better match than Spike O’Sullivan would have been, but he has also been campaigning as a junior middleweight for his last few fights. He will be a considerable underdog. Duhaupas is a game, veteran Euro heavyweight who Miller should get rid of if he is really a fighter who can challenge the top of the heavyweight division. This isn’t a terrible card, but it isn’t a great one either.
- Finally, while it is early and we haven’t even seen the sequel yet, but early talks are that HBO’s Superfly series will continue beyond this weekend’s Superfly II headlined by Srisaket Sor Rungvisai and Juan Francisco Estrada. Hopefully this card doesn’t bomb without popular divisional star Chocolatito Gonzalez and ruin those plans. If they remain, the third edition of the series will take place in the fall. I hope it does.
