We have a date for Billy Joe Saunders title defense against Demetrius Andrade. The fight, like several other prominent battles this fall, will be on soon to be launched sports streaming service DAZN. That isn’t the only fight of note booked though. It isn’t even the only one of note on DAZN.
- PBC on FS1 – August 25th’s PBC on FS1 show headlined by Jamal James has picked up two more fights and a third hour, making it a five fight broadcast. 2016 Olympians Eimantas Stanionis (6-0, 5 KOs) of Lithuania and Efe Ajagba (5-0, 5 KOs) have both been added. Stanionis, considered a further along prospect despite their similar records, is taking a huge step up against Levan Ghvamichava (18-3-1, 13 KOs) too. That is some bold matchmaking right there. Ajagba doesn’t have an opponent yet, but don’t expect anything like Ghvamichava in his case. Willie Monroe and Javontay Clark will also be in action on the broadcast.
- Kingry – Golden Boy’s Facebook Watch experiment continues on September 1st. This time they will feature their star 20 year old prospect Ryan Garcia (15-0, 13 KOs) in the main event against Mexican high regional level fighter Carlos Morales (17-2-2, 5 KOs). Morales has a couple okay wins for his level and has never been stopped, so he is a reasonable test for a 20 year old even if he is a step back down from Jayson Velez. What’s most interesting to me here though is Golden Boy burning solid ESPN main events on this venture. They seem to really want it to work. This tells me that their relationship with ESPN may not live past the initial contract.
- Revenge – Luke Campbell (18-2, 15 KOs) will have an opportunity to avenge his first career defeat when he meets French fellow lightweight contender Yvan Mendy (40-4-1, 19 KOs) in a WBC eliminator on the undercard of Anthony Joshua’s September 22nd three belt defense against Alexander Povetkin. DAZN will televise. Campbell, a 2012 Olympic gold medalist, was dropped and upset by Mendy in 2015 by split decision. Mendy did not capitalize on the career momentum and has done little of note since then, but Campbell has rebounded nicely. He fought very respectively in a competitive loss to Jorge Linares even. Needless to say this is a big one for both men.
- DAZN USA 1 – Eddie Hearn’s first Matchroom USA card on DAZN is set for Chicago on October 6th. Former two weight titleholder Jessie Vargas (28-2-1, 10 KOs) will headlined against Puerto Rican fringe contender Thomas Dulorme (24-3, 16 KOs). Vargas will be rightfully favored, but Dulorme is coming off a strong showing in a competitive loss against Yordenis Ugas. Also on the show is a pair of world title fights as Artur Beterbiev (12-0, 12 KOs) and Danny Roman (25-2-1, 9 KOs) are set to defend their light heavyweight and super bantamweight belts respectively against British opposition in Callum Johnson (17-0, 12 KOs) and Gavin McDonnell (20-1-2, 5 KOs). Finally, in by far the worst part of the show, heavyweight contender Jarrell Miller (21-0-1, 18 KOs) will engage in a gross mismatch with 41 year old faded former light heavyweight and cruiserweight titleholder Tomasz Adamek (53-5, 31 KOs). No one but Hearn thinks that one is a good idea.
- Billy Joe Defends – WBO middleweight titleholder Billy Joe Saunders (26-0, 12 KOs) will be coming to America to defend against former junior middleweight titleholder Demetrius Andrade (25-0, 16 KOs) on October 20th. Eddie Hearn has bought the fight for his new signee in Andrade so this too will be on DAZN. This is a good matchup in terms of bringing two top middleweights in the ring with one another, but stylistically this may not be an exciting fight. Still, I look forward to it anyway. Don’t expect anything other than a chess match in there, but at the same time it is an interesting one.
- Pulev, at last – Finally, one week later will bring a heavyweight IBF title eliminator between Kubrat Pulev (25-1, 13 KOs) and Hughie Fury (21-1, 11 KOs), or at least it will according to recent reports. I remain skeptical because this is supposedly slated for Pulev’s home country of Bulgaria. Fury was not willing to travel to New Zealand to fight Joseph Parker. Accordingly, it would be a surprise to me to see him travel to Bulgaria. Plus, when he did fight Parker in the UK, Hughie basically ran for twelve rounds. It is had to get excited about this one, but at the same time I am happy for Kubrat to finally have an opponent for this. A couple guys had dropped out previously to avoid having to take the fight on the road.
