One of the best fighters in the world takes care of a mandatory obligation from Las Vegas as Naoya Inoue defends his WBA and IBF bantamweight titles against Michael Dasmarinas of the Phillipines.
Inoue knocked out Jason Moloney in seven in his last fight in October and hopes to move onto unification fight in either a rematch with Nonito Donaire for the WBC title or the winner of John Riel Casimero-Guillermo Rigondeaux's summer match for Casimero's WBO championship.
Dasmarinas isn't well-known or has a track record against top competition, but he does fight out of the Sean Gibbons Knucklehead boxing group and Gibbons often brings lesser-known fighters to pull major surprises, so while an upset is extremely unlikely stranger things have happened.
The co-feature is interesting with former WBO junior featherweight champion Isaac Dogboe continuing his comeback against rugged Adam Lopez in a featherweight tilt.
Dogboe looked good in taking apart Chris Avalos in eight last July in his first fight since two losses to Emmanuel Navarette, while Lopez has won two straight wins since knocking Oscar Valdez down and being stopped controversially in seven rounds in a loss that looks even better since Valdez's dominating win over Miguel Berchelt.
Over on Showtime from Houston, a three-bout slate is headlined by a squash match with two solid fights on the televised undercard.
WBC middleweight champion Jermall Charlo defends his title against an undeserving challenger in Juan Montiel.
Charlo defeated his first quality challenger at middleweight in his last defense, winning a unanimous decision over Sergey Dereyvenchenko, but this defense is literally a squash match against Montiel, who "earned" this shot with a first-round knockout of a washed-up James Kirkland.
Montiel's other fight against a quality opponent saw him taken out in two by Jaime Munguia, so in my eyes, anything short of an early knockout win by Charlo will be taken as a disappointment.
The co-feature should be an action-filled affair in the lightweight division as big-punching Isaac Cruz faces former WBC junior lightweight champion, Francisco Vargas, in what could be a fight that ends early.
I give Cruz the edge in this one as Vargas has taken plenty of punches in his career and between moving up in weight and Cruz's hard-punching, Vargas looks to be a fighter ready to be taken.
The opening fight is a crossroads fight for two fighters coming off their first losses as Angelo Leo returns after losing his WBO junior featherweight title to Stephen Fulton to battle Aaron Alameda, who lost his last fight challenging then-WBC champion Luis Nery.
This should be a fight that will go the distance with neither fighter possessing a lot of power and it may not be the most exciting fight ever made, but the winner will keep themselves in the title picture with the loser dropping back in the ratings.
The day starts on DAZN out in the West Texas town of El Paso as former WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia faces late replacement Kamil Szeremeta.
Munguia, who despite sitting in the mandatory position in the WBO seems to have little intention of challenging their champion Demetrius Andrade, has had several fights canceled of late and Szeremeta replaces Maciej Sulecki, who dropped out, was replaced, took the fight again, and dropped out again which created the need for Sheremeta's late signature for the fight.
Munguia stopped Tureano Johnson after six rounds in his last fight in which a Munguia uppercut tore off a piece of Johnson's lip and deposited in the front row, but Johnson was starting to come on in the fight and it might have been an interesting second half had Johnson not lost that lip chunk.
The light-punching Sheremeta appears to be perfect for Munguia to look sharp against with Sheremeta's overmatched loss to Gennady Golovkin in seven rounds in his last fight and his style against the taller Munguia makes him tailor-made for Munguia.
The co-feature is also interesting and could be the fight of the day as veteran super middleweight Gabriel Rosado is the first test for one of the most talked-about prospects in boxing- Beketmir "The Bully" Melikuziev.
Rosado usually gives a top effort, but his last fight- a split decision loss to Daniel Jacobs (that I scored a draw) that was so dull it deserved to be forgotten immediately, will be best remembered for ring announcer Jeremiah Gallegos announcing Rosado as the winner and then snatching the football away by correcting himself calling Jacobs the victor.
The Bully has stopped six of his seven opponents and has beaten the type of opponents that fighters with twice his experience would be facing, but while Rosado is a level higher than those opponents, his style seems to be well suited for Melikuziev.
This could be the grand opening for Melikuziev at the world-class level and the stage seems set for a spectacular performance.
In the boxing challenge, I lead Ramon Malpica 78-72.
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