Jarrell Miller gets the main event on a very strange DAZN card.
“Live from Mulvane, Kansas” is not something I think we’ve ever heard on a broadcast truly meant for a national audience, but that is what our ears will be taking in tomorrow night on DAZN. How we got to Kansas is a story in itself. It’ll come out as we go down the card and take a look at this simultaneously deep and very shallow show fight by fight.
Jarrell Miller (22-0-1, 19 KOs) v Bogdan Dinu (18-0, 14 KOs), heavyweights
The main event pits emerging 300 lb heavyweight contender Jarrell Miller against completely unknown and almost certainly overmatched Romanian fighter Bogdan Dinu. While the unknown variable does occasionally give us a beautiful surprise, the history of Romanian exports in recent years has been abundantly consistent. They don’t usually make it over here, but in Europe the Romanian experience abroad always ends in the fighter being exposed as having an empty record with nothing to back it. Let’s also point out that Miller weighed 315 lbs for this one versus Dinu’s 237. The size difference will be more absurd than the likely overall quality differential. I don’t know why this is a fight that is happening at all, let alone a main event. It is also for one of those fake WBA titles if anyone cares.
Brandon Rios (34-4-1, 25 KOs) v Ramon Alvarez (27-6-3, 16 KOs), junior middleweights
Former action star and titleholder Brandon Rios competes in the co-main event against Canelo Alvarez’s lesser brother, Ramon. This will be Rios’s first fight back since his spirited and surprisingly strong effort against Danny Garcia in February. Yet, despite exceeding expectations that night, “Bam Bam” was still definitively knocked out. He has never really been able to replicate his success at lightweight against bigger men. This one has a 151 lb catchweight making it technically a junior middleweight bout. Ramon Alvarez shouldn’t be a problem even up that high in theory, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was. Ramon isn’t anything more than a solid domestic name in his home country, but up this high in weight it may not take much more than that to be competitive with such a defensively limited and likely quite diminished fighter like Rios. My view here is that if Brandon can hurt Ramon with single shots, then he will have an easy night. If he can’t, all bets are off. Also of note is the fact that Rios is originally from Kansas. That isn’t why the card is in Mulvane, but it will be important in a bit.
Gabriel Rosado (24-11, 14 KOs) v Luis Arias (18-1, 9 KOs), middleweights
This is the best matched fight on the show. Gabriel Rosado is well known at this point having fought the likes of Gennady Golovkin, Peter Quillin, Jermall Charlo, David Lemieux, and Martin Murray. Those were all losses, but he was respectable in several of those bouts. He has also picked up a reputation as being exciting from being tough in those bouts, but don’t confuse Rosado for an action fighter like most seem to. That isn’t how he wants to fight. It is just what happens when he is outclassed. Luis Arias was a nice rising middleweight who put on a really solid performance on the Ward-Kovalev II undercard in dominating Arif Magomedov. He played that into a shot at Danny Jacobs on HBO proper, but it was a disaster. Arias suffered a first round shoulder injury that left him helpless to do much other than run. No one realized the injury until after, however, so live he just looked like a terrified fighter ruining the show. That night has entirely tanked his career since and this Rosado bout is his first shot at redemption. Both guys are angling to be in the top 15 at 160 lbs with a win.
Claressa Shields (6-0, 2 KOs) v Hannah Rankin (5-2, 1 KO), WBA, WBC, & IBF female middleweight titles
US Olympic star and two belt unified middleweight titleholder looks to pick up a third currently vacant belt here against British opponent Hannah Rankin. On paper this looks like a giant mismatch, but I will freely admit to not really following women’s boxing. I enjoy, support it, and hope that some day some deserving woman gets so big that I can’t ignore it any longer, but we aren’t there yet. My problem is just one of time. I try to cover the traditional male side to such an absurd depth that I am always extremely pressed for time to get everything up. I can’t possibly double it up by adding the other half of the human population. Someday demand will probably change that though if the female side keeps growing as fast as it currently is.
Nico Hernandez (5-0, 4 KOs) v Josue Morales (8-7-3), flyweights
We are in Kansas this time, Toto. Nico Hernandez was a great story in the Rio Olympics. His medal winning run was a total shock to the international amateur boxing community. I don’t even think Team USA saw it coming. After the games Nico turned pro as would be expected, but he rebuffed all offers from major promoters and instead has been doing his own thing by self promoting at home in Kansas. Hernandez is doing well too in creating an unexpected little boxing bubble like Bud Crawford has done in Omaha, Nebraska. Eddie Hearn never planned on putting this show in Kansas, but he did have an obvious problem as to the fact that Miller-Dinu is not going to draw well basically anywhere as a main event. Matchroom has not signed Nico Hernandez, but the two sides spoke and decided to bring this card to Kansas with Hernandez competing on it to get bodies in the building. The part that sealed the deal for moving the show there was the fact that Brandon Rios in the co-feature is originally from the state as well. The bronze medalist will draw his ccowd and get another early career showcase win. Hopefully the audience doesn’t thin out afterward.
That’s all we’ve got. There are five fights of note, yet only one of them lacks an overwhelming favorite in Rosado-Arias. The DAZN broadcast starts at 6 PM Eastern. The one thing the stream does have going for it is a lack of competition. There is nothing else, so I guess we will tune in by default.
