DAZN and Golden Boy has the best card with two world championship battles that will have repercussions in their divisions from Indio California in
In the main event, Joseph Diaz will defend his IBF junior lightweight championship against mandatory challenger Shavkat Rakhimov.
Diaz is making the first defense of his title after defeating Tevin Farmer last January and battled through a bad cut suffered in the second round to take the title away from the slick-boxing Farmer.
Rakhimov is a live underdog but hasn't been matched against tough competition other than stopping the usually rugged Robinson Castellanos in two rounds in 2018.
The co-feature is the fight that I am most looking forward to with WBO junior middleweight champion Patrick Teixeira defending his title for the first time against Brian Castano in an inter-promotional match.
Teixeira won the vacant title in a surprising upset over then-undefeated Carlos Adames on an ESPN card in November 2019 in a terrific fight but will again be an underdog against mandatory challenger, Castano, who moves over from PBC to take this opportunity.
Castano has a draw against Erislandy Lara on his record and PBC would love to have Castano bring the only title in the division that is not held by Jermell Charlo back to their promotion to set up a potential championship to unify all four titles.
I lean toward Castano slightly, but this may be the best fight of the weekend as well as the most important.
Golden Boy has made this card even deeper with a solid third fight that pits two former junior featherweight title challengers in a crossroads bout with Ronny Rios taking on Oscar Negrete.
Both men lost decisions to Rey Vargas in those challenges, but Negrete has fought minor champion, Joshua Franco, three times, drawing twice and losing a split decision that was extremely close.
That might be just enough for a small edge over Rios, who has won three in a row since a loss to Azat Hovhannisyan including a sixth-round knockout of then-undefeated Diego De La Hoya.
Earlier in the day, DAZN will stream a Matchroom card from the U.K. with former IBF featherweight champion Josh Warrington making his return against Mauricio Lara.
Warrington was ordered by the IBF to defend against Kid Galahad, who Warrington defeated in 2019, and preferring to fight WBA minor champion Xu Can, Warrington vacated the title.
Lara is moving up in competition and seems to be the foil for Warrington's return without a record against world-class opponents.
The day looked to be even better for boxing with Top Rank and ESPN's card that would have finally filled the WBO light heavyweight title after being vacant for over a year, but Maxim Vlasov tested positive for Covid-19 and his fight with Joe Smith has been postponed.
I wish someone had thought to perhaps put two qualified contenders on the undercard that could have been used to replace Vlasov and have the title filled.
Instead, the title remains vacant, Joe Smith will have to wait for that fight and push an eventual three title unification with WBC and IBF champion Artur Beterbiev even farther down the road.
The co-feature is still a good one as former IBF lightweight champion Richard Commey is back for the first time since being knocked out in two rounds and losing his title to Teofimo Lopez.
Commey is favored, but his opponent isn't an easy mark in Jackson Marinez.
Marinez clearly defeated Rolando Romero for one of those garbage WBA titles, but lost in one of the worst decisions of 2020, so if Commey has lost anything after losing to Lopez, Marinez is capable of taking advantage.
In the boxing challenge, I lead Ramon Malpica 6-5 in the early stages of the year.
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