The suddenly relevant middleweight gets a televised fight at home.
Minnesota middleweight Rob Brant (24-1, 16 KOs) has had rollercoaster run in his career over the last year and a half. He was considered a strong middleweight prospect on the back of his ShoBox appearances by the end of 2017 and it earned him a spot in the first season of the World Boxing Super Series. That proved to be a poor decision in joining, however. The tournament was up at super middleweight and Brant ended up being quite undersized when he was matched on the road with Juergen Braehmer dropping down from light heavyweight.
Most had written Brant off after he was easily handled by Braehmer. When he was brought in as an opponent for secondary titleholder and Olympic gold medalist Ryota Murata’s first American main event, the thought to be busted prospect was viewed as a middling opponent. Rob Brant proved to be much more than that, however. He dominated the Japanese star from bell to bell in a big upset that netted the Minnesota native the secondary belt.
Now Brant will be returning home on February 15th for a Top Rank on ESPN main event against unbeaten Ukrainian prospect Khasan Baysangurov (17-0, 9 KOs). I don’t know much about Baysangurov to be honest, but he is part of the same family as former junior middleweight titleholder Zaurbek Baysangurov so he has a decent pedigree going for him at least. To be blunt he is a pretty random choice of an opponent and this seems like a lot for the young challenger to bite off in one go here. Maybe showcasing Brant in a one sided fight is actual intended point with this fight by Top Rank anyway though.
ESPN’s Dan Rafael has reported this as a Top Rank on ESPN show, like I said above. I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually turned into an ESPN+ show in the end though. I can’t see this one pulling very good numbers on the main network if they do run it even with the fake world title to help promote it.
