ESPN2 will broadcast the Golden Boy on ESPN card.
This one should be good. While it isn’t a high profile fight by any means, I want to highlight it for that reason alone rather than burying it in a lower key collection of fight booking news. Neeco Macias (17-0, 10 KOs) is worth the price of admission and your time if he continues to fight anywhere close to with the intensity he brought to upset Mexican Olympian Marvyn Cabrera at the very beginning of last month. “The Rooster,” a California native, threw an ungodly amount of punches over six rounds before the Mexican prospect retired on his stool in response. In fact, Macias set the junior middleweight compubox record for punches in a round by launching an astonishing 219 in the fifth of his upset win. Golden Boy scooped him right up on the heels of the performance and he’ll he headlining in his very first fight as a member of their roster.
Jesus Soto Karass (28-13-4, 18 KOs), 36, is here to lose to the man nine years his junior, but he will like the style matchup if nothing else. Karass has long been involved in compelling action fights even if he has never truly been able to get over the hump to become a world level player. In fact, he hasn’t even as much as won a fight since 2013 when he stopped an injured Andre Berto late to get as close to that level as he’s ever come. The Mexican brawler is 0-5-1 since then officially. He’s had an argument on the cards in two of those though and the draw against Yoshihiro Kamegai was a breathtaking FOTY contender in 2016. Two of the losses also came against real top level talent in Keith Thurman and Devon Alexander, but I will say the most recent stoppage loss to Juan Carlos Abreu is concerning. The Dominican boxed and countered, however, while Macias showed no desire for that sort of nonsense in his one big win.
Again, this isn’t a fight with immediate world level implications. Maybe Neeco Macias can get there, and this fight would certainly help, but it isn’t going to put him there on its own given Karass’s diminished reputation. Instead, what it will likely be is a very fun brawl. I can’t really see it going any other way unless Jesus is shot and folds early. He’s always shown way too much heart to expect him to suddenly do that though. The card will air on ESPN2 on Thursday, November 8th at 11 PM Eastern. I wouldn’t miss it.
