Premier Boxing Champions returns to Bounce TV tomorrow night with Tony Harrison and Ishe Smith in the main event. It isn’t a major card by any means, but the doubleheader will have major implicatons for the careers involved. Let’s take a quick look at the show.
I am happy about this show mainly for one reason. PBC just needs to run more cards. The psuedo-promotional outfit has a huge roster that just doesn’t get work. They really need to get more like this show going so fighters can simply get in the ring. Talented 27 year old Detroit junior middleweight Tony Harrison (26-2, 21 KOs) will be the one getting in the ring in this case in the main event against tricky veteran Ishe Smith (29-9, 12 KOs).
Tony Harrison’s career story has been a pretty simple one. He was a major prospect by the end of 2015 after winning his first twenty one fights with a high knockout percentage. Harrison also had dominant wins over known veterans like Grady Brewer, Antwone Smith, and Tyrone Brunson. These weren’t names meant to test high level fighters, but to get all three out inside two rounds was a promising sign for an exciting young prospect. Tony was exciting too. He brought a flashy style in and out of the ring, looking like a potential star all the while.
Big, durable Willie Nelson ended all the hype three years ago now. That July night was an all around strange one for Harrison. First, his normal flashy nature was gone, probably out of deference to his step up opponent. The two normally exciting fighters put on what ended up being a pretty dull fight through eight rounds. The highly regarded prospect was winning, but he wasn’t thrilling like normal. Still, a boring win would have been a big victory in hindsight. In the last twenty seconds of the ninth, Nelson caught Harrison with a pair of big right hands out of no where that took his legs away and sent him down. He got up, but he was clearly in no condition to continue and the fight was stopped.
After three comeback fights including two decent wins over Fernando Guerrero and Sergey Rabchenko, Harrison stepped back up for a vacant world title against Jarrett Hurd. At the time the fight felt like deja vu. Tony took a lead into the second half of the fight only to get stopped in the ninth round. This time there was more of a build as he faded and Hurd ramped up, but it was the same ninth round finish in the end. Now knowing more about Jarrett Hurd, however, this is more forgiveable. Hurd falls behind early and roars back for the big finish against everyone. He is now the S8C #1 junior middleweight in the world for good reason.
Tony took two more comeback fights, this time at an ever lower level off television. He returns to the spotlight tomorrow night on Bounce against Ishe Smith. The Las Vegas native has unquestionably had a really solid career. He briefly held a true world title in 2013 and sports solid wins over the likes of Randall Bailey, Pawel Wolak, Cornelius Bundrage, and Frank Galarza. He’s lost to all the elite world level fighters he has faced, but he has been competitive in some of those fights and never stopped. Slightly faded at 39, Smith represents a level Harrison has already won at a few times, but not since the beating Jarrett Hurd put on him over a year ago now. Ishe is good enough to ask some questions of Tony here, but I expect the Detroit product to be able to answer them on his way to a decision win.
Talented cruiserweight Andrew Tabiti (15-0, 12 KOs) gets the call in the co-main event against former contender Lateef Kayode (21-2, 16 KOs). Tabiti is exactly the kind of fighter PBC needs to run more shows for. He has only fought three times in the last 32 months despite all three wins representing good work. His domination of former top cruiserweight Steve Cunningham last summer should have been a real launching pad, but instead he stayed on the shelf. He is in pretty soft here though. Years ago Lateef Kayode was a rising power punching prospect, but time has proven his limitations. He has an additional pair of losses to an overweight and faded Antonio Tarver and more forgiveably to Luis Ortiz at heavyweight that were wiped away by failed drug tests. His two official losses came in his most recent fights, one sided dominations at the hands of divisional elite Denis Lebedev and former Tabiti victim Keith Tapia. This will also be only his second fight since 2015. Andrew Tabiti will win this one by stoppage.
Bounce has the call at 9 PM Eastern. Historically production values have been pretty low on these shows so don’t expect much there. This card will conflict with ShoBox’s 10 PM start. Also of meta-note, I do not get the network and therefore will need to find alternate means of viewing before I can put up a recap. This one may be delayed.
