The much anticipated June 9th return date of former heavyweight champion Tyson Fury now has its dance partner. We also unfortunately have a fight date for Antonio Tarver and a pretty weak opponent for Miguel Berchelt too. It isn’t all bad news though as we also have a vacant title being filled, news on the next edition of HBO’s successful Super Fly series, and more.
- First, the big one. Former unified and arguably still lineal heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) has his opponent for his June 9th comeback fight. Predictably, it is as light of a touch as his team could find with a credible looking record. Albanian cruiserweight Sefer Seferi (23-1, 20 KOs) and his empty, down one weigh class record will step up to be Fury’s fodder. This will Tyson’s first fight back in almost three years following his big win over Wladimir Klitschko thanks to what could probably fairly be described as series of mental breakdowns and a big weight gain. Here’s to Tyson having his head back in the game and fighting top fighters again after a few tuneups like this one.
- If you were hoping the Magic Man was retired, you are about to be disappointed. Light heavyweight legend Antonio Tarver (31-6-1, 22 KOs) is planning another fight at heavyweight on Sunday, June 10th. His opponent would be fringe contender Travis Kaufman (31-2, 23 KOs). Tarver is 3-0-1 at heavyweight, but the best of those wins was still a pretty middling one against now trainer Jonathan Banks. He is also 49 years old. Still, I wouldn’t be shocked if he could be competitive against a limited fighter like Travis Kaufman, but then again at 49 I wouldn’t be shocked if he was trounced either. This will very likely be a PBC on FS1.
- The vacant WBC bantamweight title will find a home on June 23rd. Two time French Olympian Nordine Oubaali (14-0, 11 KOs) will get a big opportunity at home to fight for the vacant title against little known Thai opponent Petch Sor Chitpattana (46-0, 31 KOs). Ignore the 24 year old’s gaudy record as that sort of record building, empty fluff style of matchmaking in Thailand regularly breeds fighters with that sort of showy pro record regardless of whether they can compete at world level or not. Chitpattana is a complete unknown and underdog here on the road.
- Also on June 23rd, top junior lightweight Miguel Berchelt (33-1, 29 KOs) will be defending his WBC belt at home in Mexico against Argentinian contender Jonathan Victor Barros (41-5-1, 22 KOs). Barros was soundly dropped and decisioned by a worse titleholder one weight class down against Lee Selby last time out, so he can’t expect to be competitive here. This is Berchelt’s second consecutive lower level, stay busy sort of defense following his two big wins over Francisco Vargas and Takashi Miura. One is expected these days, but two fights like this in a row is a little alarming. I hope we see Berchelt in against another top fighter in the division in the fall.
- New Mexican WBO junior middleweight titleholder Jaime Munguia (29-0, 25 KOs) will indeed fight mandatory challenger Liam Smith (26-1-1, 14 KOs) of the UK in his first title defense. In fact, Munguia only got the opportunity to fight for the belt at all because Smith was injured. The fight will take place in late July if all goes well and will be a decent second test for an entertaining young prospect turned titleholder following his easy domination of game, but hugely outsized Sadam Ali a couple weeks ago. Target dates are either the 21st or 28th.
- September 8th will be the date for HBO’s Super Fly 3 card assuming everything comes together as planned. The main event is tentatively penciled in as a rematch of Super Fly 2’s great fight between divisional king and WBC titleholder Srisaket Sor Rungvisai (45-4-1, 40 KOs) and Juan Francisco Estrada (36-3, 25 KOs) in which Rungvisai narrowly held onto his status after twelve rounds of fierce action. The fight was originally targeted for August, but it has had to be delayed following Rungvisai apparently suffering a difficult breakup with a longtime girlfriend and needing time. The show will also look again to be a tripleheader, but no word on the co-features as of yet.
- September 15th will see the return of former super middleweight World Boxing Super Series participant Avni Yildirim (19-1, 11 KOs) of Turkey against 46 year old Danishi based, Congolese born fringe contender Lolenga Mock (42-14, 11 KOs). That doesn’t sound like a super compelling bout on paper, but Mock is 11-0 since his last loss in 2013 and has wins over strong Euro-level opposition like Dmitrii Chudinov and Luke Blackledge. He’s a good test to see where the once major prospect is at.
