If only for a week, boxing comes back to life. The main attraction Saturday night is the return of Manny Pacquiao intriguingly in against Lucas Matthysse on ESPN+. Once again ESPN is the epicenter of the sport for the week too with a Regis Prograis fight before that show and a Golden Boy card the night before. That is still going to take some getting used to for me.
Friday, July 13th
Joet Gonzalez (19-0, 11 KOs) v Rafael Rivera (25-1-2, 16 KOs), featherweights & Christian Gonzalez (18-2, 15 KOs) v Arturo Santos Reyes (19-10, 5 KOs), lightweights – Los Angeles, California – Golden Boy on ESPN, 7 PM Eastern
Golden Boy has an early show Friday night on mainline ESPN headlined by unbeaten featherweight prospect Joet Gonzalez. He’s taking what could be considered a minor step up here against Mexican domestic fighter Rafael Rivera. Gonzalez is probably more of a B-level prospect on the world scene and overall he is pretty untested. Rivera is a better matchup though because he has some results to compare this one too. The Mexican had enough to overcome a high domestic level fighter and former weak titleholder like Wilfredo Vasquez Jr, but was easily outboxed by a true world level contender in JoJo Diaz. Which level is Gonzalez closer to? We may find out Friday night. Limited action fighter Christian “Chimpa” Gonzalaez returns in the co-main event too. Note the 7 PM start time here.
Saturday, July 14th
Eduardo Hernandez (25-0, 22 KOs) v Marlyn Cabrera (24-2, 11 KOs), junior lightweights – Mexico City, Mexico – Televisa
It is always hard for me to figure out whether or not boxrec is accurate or not with its Televisa listings, but hopefully this one is actually on this time. It was listed for last week, as you might remember, and then never happened. 20 year old Eduardo Hernandez is a major Mexican prospect taking a lateral step here. Cabrera’s record looks good, but his two losses represent the only times he has stepped up and neither was competitive. Hernandez is a puncher that figures to get rid of Cabrera early. All three of Eduardo’s decision wins came in his first six fights, mostly as a 16 year old. He has stopped nineteen straight opponents inside four rounds since. Watch him if he’s actually fighting and you can.
Regis Prograis (21-0, 18 KOs) v Juan Jose Velasco (20-0, 12 KOs), junior welterweights & Erick De Leon (17-0-1, 10 KOs) v Adrian Young (25-4-2, 19 KOs), junior lightweights – New Orleans, Louisiana – ESPN, 7 PM Eastern
Top Rank is loaning out an ESPN main event to Lou DiBella to help him build up hyper talented secondary titleholder Regis Prograis and by proxy a future fight with Top Rank’s full titleholder Jose Ramirez. Prograis is an outstanding and aggressive fighter who figures to roll over the untested Argentinian in front of him. You never know for sure until they get in there though. Top Rank has put together most of the rest of the card, including the co-main event. Erick De Leon was lucky to get a draw last time out in a showdown of unbeaten, young fighters in the Top Rank stable against Andy Vences, so he’s taking a bit of a step back here. This isn’t a super inspiring card as high as I am on Prograis, but maybe think of it as a lead in to the bigger card that it is timed to end before. The prelim broadcast begins at 4:30 PM Eastern and features major Olympic prospects Fazliddin Gaibnazarov, Teofimo Lopez, and DiBella addition Charles Conwell. I am particularly high on Lopez.
Manny Pacquiao (59-7-2, 38 KOs) v Lucas Matthysse (39-4, 36 KOs), welterweights & Jhack Tepora (21-0, 16 KOs) v Edivaldo Ortega (26-1-1, 12 KOs), featherweights & Moruti Mthalane (35-2, 24 KOs) v Muhammad Waseem (8-0, 6 KOs), IBF flyweight title & Carlos Canizales (20-0-1, 16 KOs) v Bin Lu (1-0, 1 KO), light flyweights – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – ESPN+, 9 PM Eastern
In a weird way, we owe Manny Pacquiao here. He broke away from Top Rank and intended to do a PPV under his own MP Promotions banners, but he bungled the money badly and everything came in so late that the best anyone could do is this ESPN+ slot. The main event could go a number of ways. I am worried about Matthysse having difficult pulling the trigger and it being a bad to watch mostly. I still see Pacquiao as a viable welterweight contender even as a part time fighter at 38 and expect him to win, but it might not be as exciting as maybe we’d hope. It is also not a world title fight no matter the advertising, just like the other two fights for WBA belts on the show. They all are secondary titles as higher titleholders exist within the organization at the weights. South African former titleholder Moruti Mthalane (who lost his belt to inactivity, not in a fight) and Pakistani amateur standout Muhammad Waseem put on the only real title fight. Still, Chinese Olympian Bin Lu going for even a nonsense interim belt in his second pro fight is an interesting development at least. Unfortunately though, I am not entirely sure what will air here. It reads like the main event and the secondary featherweight title fight between Tepora and Ortega will air. Plus, the prelim stream begins one hour earlier at eight, so another one of the fights could be on that. I am worried that leaves the fourth one out though, either Mthalane-Waseem or Canizales-Lu. I hope not as I want to see both of those fights..
