Traditionally summer is a very slow time for the sport of boxing and the summer of 2018 doesn’t look to be much different. Still, slow doesn’t mean dead and fights are still being booked. We have the returns of Artur Beterbiev, Jean Pascal, and a few thoroughly uninspiring ESPN shows from both Top Rank and Golden Boy.
- The Mean Machine – First, the July 7th Top Rank on ESPN card headlined by Jose Ramirez’s junior welterweight title defense against woefully overmatched Danny O’Connor has its co-main event in the return of rising Lithuanian contender Egidijus Kavaliauskas (19-0, 16 KOs). Just call him “The Mean Machine.” His opponent will be well marked Dominican fringe contender Juan Carlos Abreu (21-3-1, 19 KOs). Both men scored career best wins recently with Abreu upsetting a shopworn Jesus Soto Karass late last year and and Kavaliauskus having stopped a good fighter in David Avanesyan in February. This isn’t a bad fight on its own, but it does little to wash away the sour taste of the mismatch headlining the show.
- Pascal v MMA – Former titleholder Jean Pascal’s (32-5-1, 19 KOs) brief retirement was supposed to end against in a couple days on June 29th, but his return has been pushed back to July 20th due to sluggish ticket sales. His opponent will remain the same in the form of Steve Bosse (1-0, 1 KO). Yes, you read that record right. Bosse is a former popular second tier Canadian hockey player and has a 12-2 record in MMA, including a 2-1 mark in the UFC. It is a bit of a freak show fight for sure, but whatever. I don’t want to see Pascal in with top contenders even if he did look okay against Ahmed Elibiali in December. If he is going to fight, let it be in a novelty capacity like this. Bosse is a hands first striker with power in MMA too for what that is worth.
- Golden Boy on ESPN – Golden Boy will also have one of their second tier ESPN series shows on July 20th. Unbeaten prospect Lamont Roach Jr (16-0-1, 6 KOs) will return in the main event against little known Colombian fighter Deivis Julio Bassa (20-4, 12 KOs). Roach is coming off a controversial draw against Orlando Cruz that he should have won, but that doesn’t mean he looked all that great in there either. Cruz is a fighter a top prospect should easily handle at this point in his career and Roach definitely struggled. Accordingly, Golden Boy is giving him a bit of a get well fight here on paper against Bassa. They’ve used the Colombian a couple times before to hand their fighters wins and he obliged then as he will likely do here.
- Top Rank on ESPN – Top Rank and ESPN’s honeymoon period with the fans might be coming to a close here. They’ve booked yet another pretty terrible card for August 18th to be headlined by actual heavyweight contender Bryant Jennings (21-3, 13 KOs) against former fringe contender Alexander Dimitrenko (41-3, 26 KOs) of Russia. The last time Dimitrenko stepped up against a top opponent was late in 2016 against Joseph Parker and he barely looked like a live body in there, but here he is in another main event. The co-main event only makes matters worse as another mismatch between top super middleweight contender Jesse Hart (24-1, 20 KOs) and regional level fighter Mike Gavronski (24-2-1, 15 KOs). That won’t be competitive either. This isn’t going to help a weak summer schedule one bit.
- Beterbiev – Finally, IBF light heavyweight titleholder Artur Beterbiev (12-0, 12 KOs) will defend his belt on October 6th against United Kingdom fringe contender Callum Johnson (17-0, 12 KOs). Johnson went from lesser known to on top of the British scene overnight when he blew out top regional fighter Frank Bulgioni inside a round, but Beterbiev is something else entirely. The Russian power puncher has been frustratingly inactive as he fought to get free of Montreal promoter Yvon Michel and presumably sign with Top Rank, but that failed in court a few months ago. Hopefully now the 33 year old starts to take more fights. He’ll at least have a mandatory every year now, but the IBF is notorious for less than deserving challengers so that won’t exactly excite either in all likelihood. In a bit of a twist the upcoming streaming service DAZN will carry the fight on an Eddie Hearn card, but details remain sparse on a launch date or pricing for that service.
