The sport of boxing always continues to fill out its calendar and the last few days have been no exception. We have a lot to go over here. Amir Khan’s tune up will have an American broadcast outlet, HBO and ESPN have major main events getting their co-feature announced, Gary Russell Jr will be making his annual return to the ring, and there is even much more than all that including world title fights.
- First, April 21st’s Matchroom promoted return of Amir Khan (31-4, 19 KOs) has an unexpected US television home now in the form of ESPN+, ESPN’s soon to be launched $5 a month streaming service. The fight against Phil Lo Greco (28-3, 15 KOs) is still the mismatch of a tuneup that it always was going to be, but now we get to watch it legally stateside. As someone in the business of covering boxing, I was always going to be forced into subscribing to ESPN+ as long as it is going to air any fights at all. I will be much happier about it though if they keep picking up international fights like this one that wouldn’t otherwise make US television.
- One of the small bits of fallout from Canelo’s drug test failures induced withdrawal from his May 5th rematch with Gennady Golovkin is that Golden Boy has a card the following weekend that was supposed to be aired on HBO with a replay of a now canceled fight. That May 12th show is headlined by a WBO junior middleweight title defense by Sadam Ali against Liam Smith and was suddenly in need of a co-feature. Golden Boy has delivered on that in the form of Rey Vargas (31-0, 22 KOs) making a defense of his WBC super bantamweight title against upstart contender Azat Hovhannisyan (14-2, 11 KOs). Hovhannisyan would have seemed a ridiculous mismatch before he upset Ronny Rios via stoppage last month, but now he is a reasonable contender. Vargas will still be favored heavily though.
- A solid fight has been booked in Japan for the always underrated light flyweight division on May 20th. Unified titleholder Ryoichi Taguchi (27-2-2, 12 KOs) will defend both his WBA and IBF belts against former minimumweight titleholder Hekkie Budler (31-3, 10 KOs). The South African is coming off a strong showing in another 108 lb title shot against Milan Melindo and looks to be a stiff test for Taguchi on paper. For his part, Taguchi is unbeaten in nearly five years now since meeting generational talent Naoya Inoue. This is a good title fight.
- Jerwin Ancajas’s (29-1-1, 20 KOs) all-Filipino title defense against underrated challenger Jonas Sultan (14-3, 9 KOs) was supposed to take place on the undercard of Terence Crawford’s shot at Jeff Horn’s welterweight title, but that fight’s postponement met the super flyweights were in need of a new date. They will now fight on May 26th as the main event of their own smaller show somewhere in Las Vegas. Early talk is that this fight will be shown as part of the soon to be launched ESPN+ streaming service, but that has not been confirmed as of yet.
- Jermell Charlo (30-0, 15 KOs) will make another defense of his WBC junior middleweight strap as the co-main event of June 9th’s Showtime card headlined by Leo Santa Cruz versus Abner Mares II. He doesn’t officially have an opponent as of yet, but ESPN’s Dan Rafael is claiming that former titleholder and top contender Austin Trout (31-4, 17 KOs) is the target. Trout would no doubt make for a good test against the suddenly surging Charlo brother, but he is also on the downside of his career and I’d expect Jermell to get this win.
- The very same night will also feature a bigger fight on ESPN+ in the form of Jeff Horn’s WBO welterweight title defense against moving up pound for pound superstar Terence Crawford. That fight has been well advertised since its postponement from its original date, but we are just now getting the show’s co-main event in the form of a welterweight fight between Alex Saucedo (27-0, 17 KOs) and Lenny Zappavigna (37-3, 27 KOs). This is not a relevant fight for the top of the division, but it does promise some action given their come forward styles. Zappavigna is tough, but an emerging contender like Saucedo wants to be viewed as will be expected to dismiss him convincingly.
- Finally, we don’t have a specific date for this one yet, but Gary Russell Jr (28-1, 17 KOs) has agreed to make his mandatory defense of his WBC featherweight belt against Joseph “JoJo” Diaz (26-0, 14 KOs) by the end of June. This is a rare instance of PBC and Golden Boy working together and it is only happening because it is a mandatory situation. As a fight, this is also a really good one. Both of these men are very talented and both come with a specific question mark. JoJo has not been tested on this level while Russell is one of the least active fighters in the sport. Showtime, who always work with PBC, and HBO, who always work with Golden Boy, are going to have to sort this broadcast out too.
