The main event offers the return of former WBA junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara against Brian Castano of Argentina, who holds one of the WBA's minor titles.
Lara, who lost a narrow split decision last year to Jarrett Hurd in a title unifying match, was unusually entertaining in his fight with Hurd and it'll be interesting to see if that was Lara engaging offensively against Hurd was a sign of an aging fighter without the legs to fight in the style that he once had excelled in or did Lara choose to fight in such a manner because he thought it gave him the best chance to win.
Castano lacks a win over a top ten contender with his only win over even a fringe contender, an unimpressive split decision over Michel Soro last July.
However, Castano was a highly rated amateur with victories over Errol Spence and Sergey Dereyvanchenko and appears to have a background that one would at least think could give Lara a run for his money, should the Hurd fight prove to be the last stand for the Cuban as an elite fighter.
I'm not sure Lara-Castano is a true Showtime-level main event, but I'm definitely sure that the co-feature lacks that panache' with a top-five heavyweight in a stay busy fight.
Luis "King Kong" Ortiz is a top-five heavyweight that almost knocked out WBC champion Deontay Wilder before being stopped himself in a great fight and will be fighting for the third time since that loss (Wilder has fought only once), but isn't taking any chances with another fight against a marginal fringe contender in Christian Hammer.
Hammer has losses to Tyson Fury, Alexander Povetkin, and Marius Wach, in other words, so each time the competition increased to the world-class level, Hammer gets knocked out.
This one really shows the dip in quality of late and gives me pause enough to write this- Does PBC and Al Haymon have a deep enough bench to give two partners in Showtime and Fox the type of boxing that both deserve?
The Showtime season is off to a slow start (to be generous) with Gervonta Davis one round crushing of smaller and overmatched Hugo Ruiz and even though Ruiz was a late substitution, I think the original fight vs Abner Mares was the same type of fight vs a smaller and outgunned opponent for Davis, although the more established Mares might have lasted a few more rounds, leading up to Lara-Castano after the Saturday card no fights are on their schedule until mid-April and that is a female fight (I'm not a fan of ladies boxing) of note between Clarissa Shields and Christina Hammer.
Fox has been showing name fighters from the promotion thus far with Keith Thurman and Leo Santa Cruz, but both were against essentially showcase opponents, although Josesito Lopez badly hurt Thurman in a strong effort to the point of making one wonder-if Thurman had been facing a top ten opponent, would he have survived?
Next week's WBC welterweight title bout with Shawn Porter against Yordanis Ugas is a more competitive fight and Danny Garcia's April fight against Adrian Granados could be another showcase fight, although Granados has exceeded expectations in the past when seemingly overmatched.
PBC has increased the quality of cards for FS1 with two main events already in the books (Caleb Plant-Jose Uzcategui and Anthony Dirrell-Avni Yildirim) and two others scheduled for March (Lamont Peterson-Sergey Lipinets) and April (Peter Quillin-Caleb Truax) that are of equal to better quality than what Showtime has been receiving thus far.
What makes this worse for boxing fans is that Showtime has the best announcing crew ( I'm not a huge Mauro Ranallo fan, but he is not terrible when he keeps the canned puns to himself and Al Bernstein with Paulie Malignaggi are the best color commentators in the game) and the best production as well, so it is missed when their program isn't getting the best fights.
The involvement of Fox (who has the worst blow by blow man arguably in decades in Chris Myers) in boxing can be a good thing as a network presence can attract new fans, but hopefully, their rise won't mean the beginning of demise at Showtime.
In the Boxing Challenge, Ramon Malpica leads me 41-40.
Junior Middleweights. 12 Rds
Erislandy Lara vs Brian Castano
Both; Lara Unanimous Decision
Heavyweights.12 Rds
Luis Ortiz vs Christian Hammer
R.L.: Ortiz KO 5
TRS: Ortiz KO 3
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