Russell, who won his championship almost seven years ago, has arguably been the boxer most damaged by the promotional divide in boxing as he has never received an opponent that would have been a fight that would have been center stage in boxing and his only elite opponent was his only loss, a loss to Vasyl Lomachenko for the then-vacant WBO featherweight title.
The thirty-three-year-old Russell claims that no opponents will face him, as many fighters state, but most of his top prospective opponents fight for other promoters making a Russell fight a difficult fight to make, although I believe Russell's claims that WBA champion Leo Santa Cruz has no interest in a Russell fight are true with both fighters fighting for PBC and Santa Cruz moving up and down in weight to do anything but fight Russell.
I've always been a Gary Russell fan and wished we would see more of him in the ring but sadly it's not out of the question that we may never see the best of Gary Russell as a boxer.
WBC mandatory contender Mark Magsayo earned his shot at Russell with a come from behind tenth round knockout of former WBC junior featherweight champion Julio Ceja in August.
However, it is the Ceja fight that concerns me with Magsayo, falling far behind on points against the only fighter of world-class note against a fighter that was best at 122 pounds, and causes me to wonder if Magsayo isn't a very talented fighter that may be rushed before he is quite ready against the best featherweight in the world (my opinion, not in the TRS ratings).
The co-feature is a rematch of a very good junior welterweight from February 2020 as Subriel Matias attempts to avenge a decision loss to Petros Ananyan.
Ananyan dropped Matias and won the decision that was a surprise to most as Matias was on his way up the 140-pound ratings.
Matias has looked impressive since with overpowering wins over Batyr Jukembayev and Malik Hawkins while Ananyan has fought only once.
The opener will place former Gary Russell victim Tug Nyambayar against late replacement Sakaria Lukas.
Lukas is subbing for Vic Pasillas and lost in his only fight of note, a defeat to Isaac Avelar, so even though this fight seems to be competitive in the record, it may not be so in the ring.
No comments:
Post a Comment