It’s not the most compelling matchup though.
Sometimes the quirks of the sanctioning bodies lead to fights that make sense only in the bizarre context of modern boxing. This is one of those cases. “Big Baby” Jarrell Miller (22-0-1, 19 KOs) will be competing against entirely unknown Romanian heavyweight Bogdan Dinu (18-0, 14 KOs) in the main event of a Matchroom/DAZN card on November 17th in Mulvane, Kansas.
We’ll get to the Kansas part in a minute, don’t worry. That side actually makes sense. As for why Miller’s chase of Anthony Joshua has led him to Bogdan Dinu, thank the WBA and Fres Oquendo. Long story short, the WBA does their thing in ridiculously making three titleholders of their own in each division through their farcical “super,” “regular,” and “interim” title distinctions. Fres Oquendo won a lawsuit a while back over the sanctioning body that we don’t really need to get into beyond understanding that the 45 year old who hasn’t won a fight in four and a half years is legally owed a heavyweight title shot. The WBA tried to finally give him that shot against Miller, but he declined. The fake world title is important to Miller because it could set him up to be a mandatory challenger to Anthony Joshua down the line as sometimes the WBA “unifies” their stupid belt situations briefly before creating it all over again. Without Oquendo, the next available contender in their rankings was Bogdan Dinu.
Who is Dinu? Uh. I don’t know. I only learned of his existence when the rumblings of this fight first came out. His boxrec wiki says he was a good junior amateur, but didn’t do well on the senior scene before a criminal conviction got him kicked out of the amateurs anyway. I guess we’ll take the anonymous word on that one. The only saving grace on his resume is that he has fought six fights in the respectable French-Canadian scene rather than having had all eighteen of his bouts at home in Romania. It’s not much, but it is a minor positive to be found. Of course there is the usual disclaimer of just because he hasn’t fought top competition doesn’t necessarily guarantee that he won’t be able to, but let’s be real. The history of unbeaten “contenders” coming out of Romania with no known opposition on their ledger is not strong.
Former contender Brandon Rios (34-4-1, 25 KOs) gets the co-main event slot against never contender Ramon Alvarez (27-6-3, 16 KOs), brother of Canelo. A solid Mexican regional level opponent like Alvarez is a fair comeback foe for Rios coming off the knockout loss to Danny Garcia, but that doesn’t make it an interesting co-main event. The event will feature a decently matched middleweight showdown between Luis Arias (18-1, 9 KOs) and Gabriel Rosado (24-11, 14 KOs) in its middle portions where Claressa Shields (6-0, 2 KOs) will also defend her middleweight titles in what looks like another mismatch on paper. To be fair, I don’t know much about women’s boxing though. Rising prospect Anthony Sims Jr (16-0, 15 KOs) and veteran Ricky Burns (47-2-1, 15 KOs) will also appear on the show against opponents to be named.
The reason this one ended up in Kansas is Olympic bronze medalist Nico Hernandez (5-0, 4 KOs). The flyweight has done a nice job building up a fanbase in his home state on his own without a traditional power promoter. I don’t think Matchroom signed him up, but they were in a tough spot with a main event that couldn’t possibly sell anywhere. Where is the market for Miller-Dinu? There isn’t one and they needed a creative solution. Hernandez’s availability for the card coupled with the fact that Brandon Rios is originally from the state as well made the move to the midwest a no brainer.
Eddie Hearn is one of the best promoters in the game, so it is not a surprise to me that he figured out a creative way to find a live audience for the show. The fact that he needed to do that at all, however, should be enough of an indicator as the quality of matchups being presented here. It isn’t good. What it is, however, is the only show set for that night as of now. If that stays the same, you know we will all be watching live on DAZN anyway.
