Would you like the good news, or the bad? On the positive front, we have a legal broadcast outlet for the World Boxing Super Series’s second season in America. On the negative side, a top contender is going to prison for a long time. Plus, more.
- First, the big one. The World Boxing Super Series has an American broadcast outlet for Season 2. It hasn’t launched quite yet stateside, but European sports streaming service DAZN will carry it in the US when it does as part of its push to use boxing to break through to the American audience. As disappointing as it will be to pay for yet another service on top of cable, HBO, Showtime, and now ESPN+, DAZN will also be Eddie Hearn’s US outlet as well. He will be airing all his UK cards on the streaming service and will also be filling 16 US cards a year for the service as well as part of their gigantic, billion dollar partnership. The WBSS deal is separate from that deal, meaning DAZN will have nearly nonstop boxing as a cornerstone of their offerings. That is roughly 30 cards a year from Hearn between his US and UK shows and another 21 from the WBSS if they keep each fight from their tournaments as a separate show’s main event as in season two they will be expanding to put on three tournaments. One will be at bantamweight and already has an absolutely loaded field, one will be at junior welterweight with a pretty solid group there too, while the third will be at a weight to be announced.
- Underrated lightweight Bryan Vasquez (36-3, 20 KOs) has signed on with Top Rank as part of the promotional giant’s push to expand its roster in order to meet its obligations to ESPN. The 30 year old Costa Rican has previously held a secondary title, though a true world title has eluded him. Last summer he fought now lightweight titleholder Ray Beltran to a very close, majority decision defeat on a Top Rank card without having been signed with them. Now that he is, I suspect Vasquez will be kept quite busy going forward. Let’s just hope that he doesn’t become a stay busy opponent for pound for pound king Vasyl Lomachenko.
- Finally and dishearteningly, diminutive but wildly entertaining middleweight contender Avtandil Khurtsidze (33-2-2, 22 KOs) has been found guilty on some very serious criminal charges including racketeering and wire fraud. Apparently he has been the muscle for quite the ring of crime for some time. I’m just going to quote Dan Rafael’s article on this one: “According to prosecutors, the Shulaya Enterprise was an organized criminal group operating under Shulaya’s direction that engaged in acts of violence, extortion, the operation of illegal gambling businesses, fraud on various casinos, identity theft, credit card frauds, trafficking in large quantities of stolen goods, money laundering through a fraudulently established vodka import-export company, payment of bribes to local law enforcement officers, and the operation of a Brooklyn, New York-based brothel.” Obviously, this is serious stuff and could mean 40 years in prison for the former contender come sentencing. His career is done and deservedly so.
