Some major news broke today concerning the anticipated Showtime showdown pitting Regis Prograis against Viktor Postol. That fight is now off. Thankfully, however, a great replacement was found. We also have confirmation of a previously reported rematch, two bantamweight title fights, and more.
- 2016 US Olympian Karlos Balderas (3-0, 3 KO) has had his fight this Saturday upgraded to main card status. He will be featured as the opener on the FOX show headlined by Devon Alexander and Victor Ortiz. Balderas will meet Mexican club fighter Jorge Rojas (4-2-1, 2 KOs) over six rounds in a fight clearly meant to showcase the rising prospect to a wide audience.
- This isn’t exactly new news, but Andre Dirrell’s (26-2, 16 KOs) rematch of his controversial first fight with Jose Uzcategui (26-2, 22 KOs) is now official for the undercard of Deontay Wilder’s title defense against Luis Ortiz on March 3rd. Uzcategui knocked Dirrell out after the bell in May of last year after previously being warned for hitting late earlier in the fight. This not only gave Andre Dirrell the disqualification win, but it also incited a riot in the ring that saw Dirrell’s uncle and trainer Leon Lawson banned from the sport. This should be a tense rematch to say the least.
- Viktor Postol is officially out of his scheduled secondary title bout with rising prospect Regis “Rougarou” Prograis (20-0, 17 KOs) with a hand injury. Thankfully, the bout has been saved with an equally good opponent in recent unified titleholder Julius Indongo (22-1, 11 KOs). The fight keeps its March 9th Showtime date and might even be better for the change. While Indongo will probably attempt to box at range much like Postol did, he is the more exciting of the two fighters overall.
- There is both good and bad news for rising Northern Irish star Ryan Burnett (18-0, 9 KOs). For the good, the 25 year old has his next fight set up against Yonfrez Parejo (21-2, 10 KOs) for March 31st. This will satisfy his mandatory obligations for his WBA bantamweight title. Unfortunately, doing this conflicts with what the IBF wants him to do and Burnett will choose to vacate that title. He is no longer a unified titleholder thanks to sanctioning body politics. This is an all too common story in the sport, especially at the lower weights.
- In response, the IBF has named who it would like to fight for their newly vacated bantamweight strap. They are ordering Paul Butler (26-1, 14 KOs) of the UK to fight Puerto Rican prospect Emmanuel “Manny” Rodriguez (17-0, 12 KOs). This is a pretty good potential matchup and possibly the silver lining to their nonsensical schenanigans with Burnett. There is no way these two would ever meet otherwise. The two camps will have to respond to the IBF to confirm their interest in the next few days for this to proceed.
