Boxing Challenge

A brief boxing challenge this week as just one fight in the boxing challenge takes place and it's in the World Boxing Super Series as Mairis Briedis defends his WBC cruiserweight title against Mike Perez in Latvia.

Briedis won the WBC title in his last bout as he decisioned Marco Huck for the championship that was vacated by Tony Bellew as Bellew moved to heavyweight after his upset win over David Haye.
Briedis is the second seed in the WBSS and selected Mike Perez, who is the only fighter in the tournament that I question the selection of, especially over former WBO champion Krzysztof Glowacki.
Glowacki is a standby replacement, which the WBSS has available to fight on the undercard in case someone fails to make weight or suffers a last minute injury.
Perez was a former heavyweight fringe contender that was best known for his knockout win on HBO over Magomed Abdusalamov that severely injured Abdusalamov to this day.
Perez would then go 1-2-1 over his next four fights and seemed almost scarred from the Abdusalamov bout.
Perez decided that his comeback would be as a cruiserweight and notched a first round knockout in June vs a non-descript opponent before being selected to participate in the tournament.
Briedis is a heavy favorite in the fight that will send the winner to the semi-finals and a meeting with top seed and WBO champion Oleksandr Usyk.
A Usyk-Briedis fight would not only unify two titles, it is one of the fights that observers are excited to see occur.

The World Boxing Super Series did not have an American television deal but signed one with the Directv based Audience network.
The problem is that the fight will be shown there on a tape-delayed basis instead of live (a Big Sky football game instead) so the results will be known before the showing.
Of course, I prefer watching on the big screen, but if given the choice between live on the website and delayed on television, I'll take the live option.
The contract with Audience is only for the remaining two cruiserweight and three super middleweight first round fights, so there still is no television contract signed for the semi-finals and finals in the United States.
I have Directv, so this doesn't hurt me as much, but if you don't and the fights aren't streamed live, interest in the tournament may wane.
I know how it feels when bouts from Europe are shown on AWE and I don't have that and it's hard to have the same level of interest.

I lead the challenge over Ramon Malpica 134-122

WBC Cruiserweight Title/World Boxing Super Series Quarterfinal.12 rds
Mairis Briedis vs Mike Perez
R.L; Briedis KO 6
TRS: Briedis KO 11