Thursday, October 24, 2019

Boxing Challenge

The boxing challenge returns with a big weekend across three platforms and a world title matchup on a rare Thursday night.

We start on Thursday with RingTV.com (these fights are often shown on your local sports network as well) and the WBO light flyweight title is the prize as Elwin Soto defends against Edward Heno.
Soto came from far behind on the cards to stun Angel Acosta (who fights in the co-feature) with a somewhat controversial final-round knockout to win the championship in a surprise to most, including Golden Boy promotions, who had been grooming Acosta to headline smaller cards and co-feature better ones on DAZN.
Little is known about Soto's opponent, Edward Heno, other than Heno is undefeated from the Philippines and has never fought in the United States.

Saturday brings all three platforms with fights that vary from elite level to world title level and top ten levels across the televerse.
The biggest one comes from London brought to you by DAZN as the long-delayed World Boxing Super Series begins their three tournament finals with a terrific fight that will unify the junior welterweight division with WBA champion Regis Prograis of New Orleans battling the IBF champion in Scotland's Josh Taylor.
Similar to last week's Beterviev-Gvozdyk fight, this is as close to a fight that can go either way as you'll find.
Prograis is the bigger puncher, Taylor the more talented boxer, although both are more than capable of boxing or punching.
Prograis ripped through Kiryl Relikh in rounds in his semi-final to win the WBA title, while Taylor decisioned Ivan Baranchyk, dropping him twice to win the IBF belt in his side of the bracket.
This really could go either way and keep in mind that it is Taylor's home country if this winds up going to the cards.
The winner will hold two championships and hopefully will be able to fight the possessor of the other two titles, Jose Ramirez, who holds the WBC and WBO versions of the 140-pound championship.

On the London undercard, two all-British battles that may be "loser moves on" are featured and are compelling viewing.
Heavyweight Dereck Chisora faces David Price in what has the possibility of being a firefight and has an excellent chance of a spectacular knockout.
Chisora, who does very well against a certain level of boxer, but loses against the upper level of the division will test his power against Price, the one time highly regarded prospect that hasn't shown the ability to take a punch against top twenty opponents
Price is on a three-fight winning streak against decent competition, but Chisora will be another step in class and Price has never succeeded against that level in his career.
I favor Chisora, but Price's problem has been taking punches, not delivering them, so I think he has a chance to pull the upset.

In other bout, lightweights Ricky Burns and Lee Selby face-off in a must-win fight for both.
Selby defeated fringe contender Omar Douglas in his first fight at lightweight after losing his IBF featherweight title to Josh Warrington last year, while Burns has held titles in three divisions, yet at 36 still doesn't have a career-defining win.
Selby is the younger fighter, yet is the smaller fighter, so while I think Selby has more in the gas tank than Burns, perhaps Burns can use his size and comfort at the weight to hold off Selby.

ESPN+ has a very interesting main event from Reno, Nevada as two undefeated and untested prospects with plenty of bad blood are matched against each other for the WBO featherweight title vacated by Oscar Valdez.
Former Olympic silver medalist Shakur Stevenson of Top Rank will take on Golden Boy's Joet Gonzalez for that title and this one seems to be more than for just a title.
Stevenson and Gonzalez have each lobbed their share of social media insults at the other with an issue over Stevenson dating Gonzalez's sister and whatever entailed from that.
Style-wise, neither are exactly aggressive fighters usually, so if this is going to be entertaining, someone is going to have to change things up a bit.

The co-feature is a bantamweight bout between Joshua Greer and Antonio Nieves.
Greer is coming off a majority decision win over Nikolai Potapov, who owns a split decision win over Nieves.
Nieves is the fighter that faced the "Monster" Naoya Inoue in Inoue's American debut in 2017 and lasted six rounds with Inoue. so he can take a shot.

Showtime's card from Reading Pennsylvania, has slowly crumbled around itself with several changes and finally what started out to be a solid card wound up not being all that interesting.
Erickson Lubin attempts to continue to re-establish himself in the junior middleweight division against replacement Nathaniel Gallimore.
Gallimore is replacing Terrell Gausha, who replaced Dennis Hogan against Lubin, who has knocked out three in a row since being demolished in one round against then-WBC champion Jermell Charlo.
Gallimore has lost two of his last three, but both against good opposition including a majority decision loss in 2018 to Julian Williams, who since grabbed the WBA and IBF titles in the division.

Former IBF lightweight champion Robert Easter makes his second attempt at 140 pounds against trialhorse Adrian Granados.
Granados returns to junior welterweight after being battered by Danny Garcia in a welterweight bout.
If Granados has anything left, he could give Easter a rough time as this is his best weight.
As for Easter, who lost his title to Mikey Garcia in 2018, his fight earlier this year with Rances Barthelemy that ended in a draw was one of the worst fights that I have seen in years!

In the boxing challenge, I lead Ramon Malpica 249-215.

WBO Junior Flyweight Title. 12 Rds
Elwin Soto vs Edward Heno
Both: Soto Unanimous Decision

Unification WBA-IBF Junior Welterweight Titles/World Boxing Super Series Final. 12 Rds
Regis Prograis vs Josh Taylor
R.L: Prograis KO 6
TRS; Prograis Unanimous Decision

Heavyweights.12 Rds
Dereck Chisora vs David Price
R.L: Chisora KO 9
TRS: Chisora KO 4

Lightweights. 12 Rds
Lee Selby vs Ricky Burns
Both: Selby Unanimous Decision

Vacant WBO Featherweight Title. 12 Rds
Shakur Stevenson vs Joet Gonzalez
R.L: Stevenson KO 9
TRS: Stevenson Unanimous Decision

Bantamweights. 10 Rds
Joshua Greer vs Antonio Nieves
Both: Greer Unanimous Decision

Junior Middleweights. 12 Rds
Erickson Lubin vs Nathaniel Gallimore
R.L: Lubin KO 4
TRS: Lubin KO 8

Junior Welterweights 12 Rds
Robert Easter vs Adrian Granados
Both; Easter Unanimous Decision






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