This has been the week of booked replacement fighters on Showtime. Both Ivan Baranchyk and Adrien Broner found themselves with new opponents to prepare for and good ones at that. We also have the first round match up for the ridiculously named “Sulaiman Invitation” and a notable rematch for an April PBC undercard.
- This Friday’s March 9th Showtime “Special Edition” card headlined by a great fight between former unified titleholder Julius Indongo and rising prospect Regis Prograis has seen a change in its co-main event. Originally Ivan Baranchyk (17-0, 11 KOs) was supposed to meet Anthony Yigit, but instead he will now face Spanish-Russian lightweight Petr Petrov (38-5-2, 19 KOs). I haven’t seen weight discussed for the late replacement fight, but Petrov will likely be making his junior welterweight debut here. He is an outstanding replacement on such short notice.
- PBC’s April 7th card on Showtime headlined by junior middleweight unification between Erislandy Lara and Jarrett Hurd is the targeted show for the super middleweight title rematch between Caleb Truax (29-3, 18 KOs) and James DeGale (23-2-1, 14 KOs). Truax’s December points win in the UK over DeGale was the biggest upset in all of 2017. He will likely find himself the underdog in the rematch still even. This will be a must win for James DeGale’s career to say the least.
- Omar Figueroa has dropped out of his April 21st Showtime main event against Adrien Broner (33-3, 23 KOs). Fortunately, ESPN’s Dan Rafael is reporting that PBC has found an excellent replacement in the form of former two division world titleholder Jessie Vargas (28-2, 10 KOs). That is at worst a lateral move in matchup quality. My one question is that of weight as this was supposed to be a junior welterweight fight and Vargas has not made that since 2014, but I suspect there will be a catch weight if not fulling moving the fight to welterweight. It isn’t as if Broner wants to fight at 140.
- The WBC’s and Real Deal Promotion’s welterweight tournament first round is happening on April 27th at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville. The first round matchups will be the following preceded by their seed in the tournament: #1 Felix Diaz (19-2, 9 KOs) vs #8 Derrieck Cuevas (16-0-1, 13 KOs); #2 Chris Van Heerden (25-2-1, 12 KOs) vs #7 Timo Schwarzkopf (18-1, 10 KOs); #3 Fredrick Lawson (26-1, 21 KOs) vs #6 Baishanbo Nasiywula (13-1-1, 6 KOs); and #4 Radzhab Butaev (8-0, 6 KOs) vs. #5 Brad Solomon (27-1, 9 KOs). Butaev and Solomon are definitely the most interesting part of the first round. All in all this is a neat idea to help create another contender in the division when finished.
