While there are no major fights this week and few major news stories even to discuss, we still do have some fights being made or worked on to report. There is a tentative date for the big WBSS finale between Oleksandr Usyk and Murat Gassiev as well as potential future opponents for a pair of young, exciting light heavyweight titleholders, plus more.
- First, for some reason PBC is insisting on still featuring Travis Kauffman (31-2, 23 KOs) despite his less than inspiring loss to Amir Mansour well over a year ago now. He will headline a PBC on FS1 all heavyweight tripleheader on June 10th against regional fighter Scott Alexander (14-2-2, 8 KOs). That is not an inspiring TV main event to say the least. Gerald Washington (18-2-1, 12 KOs) and Michael Hunter (13-1, 8 KOs) will also be in action in mismatches against John Wesley Nofire (20-1, KOs) and Iago Kiladze (26-2, 18 KOs) respectively. Hunter, a former cruiserweight title challenger, appears to be competing at heavyweight too from here on out.
- Golden Boy’s June 23rd ESPN2 card has its main event in the form of 20 year old major prospect Vergil Ortiz (9-0, 9 KOs) taking a step up to meet mostly shot former titleholder Juan Carlos Salgado (26-7-1, 16 KOs). Salgado is definitely well past it, but he still marks the stiffest test of his young opponent’s career by a wide margin. Lightweights Hector Tanajara Jr (13-0, 5 KOs) and Roger Gutierrez (19-1-1, 16 KOs) will meet in the televised co-feature.
- Former Bernard Hopkins conqueror Joe Smith Jr (23-2, 19 KOs) will be returning after nearly a year long layoff following his first loss against a soft touch in Melvin Russell (11-4-2, 7 KOs) on June 30th. No TV for this one. Smith was riding high in the division following two big wins, but an upset loss to Sullivan Barrera in which he suffered a broken jaw has kept the power puncher out of the ring until now.
- July 21st is the tentative date for the World Boxing Super Series cruiserweight final between Oleksandr Usyk (14-0, 11 KOs) and Murat Gassiev (26-0, 19 KOs), but with no location booked that definitely remains subject to change. With all four belts at stake for complete divisional unification between two outstanding and exciting fighters, from a purists perspective this is one of the best fights available to be made in the sport. It won’t get the big attention stateside, but I am very excited for it. The other WBSS final, a super middleweight bout between George Groves and Callum Smith, is being targeted for “late summer, early fall.” There was some concern that it wouldn’t happen due to Groves’s injury, but the later date will reportedly be long enough for him to heal up.
- Light heavyweight titleholder Dmitry Bivol (13-0, 11 KOs) is set to return on HBO’s August 4th show headlined by Sergey Kovalev and Eleider Alvarez. That’s the good news. The bad news is that his opponent is likely to be Isaac Chilemba (25-5-2, 10 KOs). It isn’t that the South African is a poor fighter because he is a good one, but he is also 1-3 in his last four and tends to do well by making fights less than exciting when he does excel. Unfortunately though, this is probably about as good of a matchup as there is available for Bivol given what everyone else in the division is up to at the moment.
- Top Rank is on the record as working towards a heavyweight main event for its August 18th ESPN card between recent titleholder Joseph Parker (24-1, 18 KOs) and former title challenger Bryant Jennings (23-2, 13 KOs), but it is apparently far from a done deal. Heavyweight fights between contenders without a belt at stake are pretty rare these days, so I hope this one does go through. I am just speculating here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Parker and his team wanted an easier fight at home following his first career defeat though.
- Finally, no date yet, but it looks as if Artur Beterbiev’s (12-0, 12 KOs) first defense of his IBF light heavyweight belt will be against British regional titleholder Callum Johnson (17-0, 12 KOs) as the always strict IBF has ordered the fight. Johnson is likely in over his head here in truth, but at least Beterbiev would be in the ring when this fight happens. The frustratingly inactive Russian puncher has been embroiled in a contract dispute with Montreal based regional power Yvon Michel and accordingly just has not been fighting over the past couple years after once being maybe the hottest prospect in boxing. With that set to be resolved soon one way or another and this fight in the works, here is to Artur Beterbiev becoming an active fighter in the sport again.
