Major fights have been announced over the last few days. We have some news regarding Billy Jose Saunders’s next defense, a date for the World Boxing Super Series super middleweight tournament finals, the complete lineup for Superfly 3, and an additional fight for PBC’s upcoming early August FOX show.
- Moving Up – First, recent junior welterweight titleholder Sergey Lipinets (13-1, 10 KOs) will be moving up to welterweight. He has been added to August 4th’s PBC on FOX telecast and will debut at the weight against gatekeeper Erick Bone (20-5, 8 KOs). This is the show headlined by Devon Alexander and Andre Berto in 2018. Dan Rafael is also reporting that Fox Sports 2 will be airing addition prelims before the main card. This is good news as PBC has lagged woefully behind in terms of providing broadcasts for their card’s earlier preliminary bouts. Top Rank, Golden Boy, and Matchroom have all found outlets for this, but PBC has failed. This is likely a one off owing to the loaded names on the pre-FOX lineup, however. The likes of Marcus Browne, Luis Collazo, Richard Commey, Brandon Figueroa, and the younger Russell brothers will all be competing in the Nassau Coliseum.
- Superfly 3 – We have our confirmed card for the third installment of HBO’s highly regarded super flyweight fight series set for September 8th. The main event will feature the return of Juan Francisco Estrada (36-3, 25 KOs) against fellow Mexican Felipe Orucuta (36-4, 30 KOs). That’s not nearly as good as the first two main events, but it is likely to be an exciting fight stylistically still. Also on the card will be Filipino star Donnie Nietes (41-1-4, 24 KOs), unbeaten since 2004, looking to become a rare four division world titleholder when he competes for the vacant WBO belt against fellow countryman Aston Palicte (24-2, 20 KOs). Most excitingly, three division Japanese titleholder and all around excellent fighter Kazuto Ioka (24-1, 13 KOs) is ending his brief retirement and moving up to super flyweight. He’ll be in tough too against top Puerto Rican contender McWilliams Arroyo (17-3, 14 KOs) fresh off his big win over Carlos Cuadras. This is the worst of the three Superfly shows on paper, but it is still a good lineup. I’m looking forward to it.
- WBSS Finale – There is a date set at last for George Groves’s (28-3, 20 KOs) World Boxing Super Series tournament concluding WBA title defense against fellow Brit Callum Smith (24-0, 17 KOs). Season one of the WBSS will conclude on September 28th. Somewhat disappointingly, this excellent all-British showdown will not take place in the UK. Instead it will travel to Saudi Arabia. I assume the WBSS got a big money over for the finals matchup there or else it would definitely make the most domestically. The atmosphere will take a hit and this is terrible for British fans, but I’m not up in arms about it. If a weird finale placement is what it takes to finance these great tournaments, it is a necessary evil. Whatever it takes to keep these going is what fans need to support happening.
- Billy Joe – Color me surprised with our last fight here. I did not think WBO middleweight titleholder Billy Joe Saunders (26-0, 12 KOs) would be all that interested in defending against new Matchroom signee Demetrius Andrade (25-0, 16 KOs) as the WBO as mandating, but apparently a deal has been reached. Eddie Hearn has bought the fight and is attempting to put in on October 20th. Hearn already had a DAZN date set for the west coast that night, but he will be moving it east for this fight instead. This is a really interesting and potentially difficult defense of Saunders. As great as he looked against Lemieux, Boo Boo Andrade brings an entirely different style and another level of athleticism. He has been enigmatic, however, and this is also sort of a sink or swim fight for the American as well. I like this one in theory, though their styles could very easily mesh poorly and lead to a boring fight being what they are.
