The weekend starts on Friday with Shakur Stevenson scheduled to defend his WBC and WBO junior lightweight titles against Robson Conceicao in Newark, New Jersey.
That ended on Thursday when Stevenson missed weight and was forced to give away both titles on the scales.
Assuming that the fight can be saved (and usually, that happens with the weight-offender giving a chunk of their payday to the opponent), Stevenson will move to the lightweight division for his next fight in a division that his promoter, Top Rank, has recognizable opponents for Stevenson to fight in Unified World Champion Devin Haney and Vasyl Lomachenko.
Stevenson earned the signature victory of his young career when he took away the WBC title from Oscar Valdez in a highly anticipated fight that Stevenson easily won a unanimous decision.
Stevenson is a heavy favorite over Conceicao, who lost a split decision to Valdez in Valdez's last fight before the Stevenson showdown and dominated previously undefeated Xavier Martinez in his most recent outing.
Conceicao is arguably better than the two remaining champions in the division (Joe Cordina IBF and Hecto Garcia WBA) and he's far from an easy touch.
However, the betting odds show how highly Stevenson is thought of and he is fighting in his hometown, so he has every advantage against a talented but not talented enough contender.
Should Conceicao earn what would be a huge upset, he would be given the two titles that Stevenson had stripped from him, and should Stevenson win, the WBC and WBO championships would be declared vacant.
Saturday from Manchester England, ESPN plus returns with a key heavyweight fight as the WBO's top contender and their mandatory challenger to Oleksandr Usyk, Joe Joyce, faces a former world champion in Joseph Parker in what could be a career-altering fight for both men.
The lumbering yet hard-punching Joyce is painfully slow and due to his age (37) has been moved very quickly and could have been carefully protected until his eventual showdown with Usyk.
Instead, Joyce, who earned his position with a tenth-round knockout of Daniel DuBois in November 2020 decided to face Parker, the former WBO champion and a boxer that might help Joyce gain some experience against a boxer to better prepare for Usyk.
Parker has won six straight since consecutive losses to Anthony Joshua (losing his title) and Dillian Whyte in 2018 and his last two wins over Derek Chisora were wildly entertaining brawls, so should Parker decide to engage Joyce we could have another wild slugfest.
However, Parker's best chance to win over Joyce would be to outbox Joyce and take advantage of his superior speed.
This is the fight that I'm looking forward to most this weekend.
DAZN will also have a card from England, theirs from Nottingham, with veteran Maxi Hughes battling former IBF featherweight champion Kid Galahad in a lightweight crossroads fight.
Hughes has won six fights in a row against European-level opponents other than a decision win over former world title challenger Jono Carroll and with a win could keep himself on the fringes of contention.
Galahad had finally won an elusive world title in winning the vacant IBF title in August 2021 but was knocked out in the sixth round by thought to be washed-up Kiko Martinez.
Galahad dominated Martinez until a knockdown late in round five and was finished off with the first punch Martinez landed in the sixth.
The question is easy with Galahad- If you can't take the punches of a past his prime featherweight, how on Earth do you expect to take punches from lightweights?
Still, Hughes is nothing special at 135 and I could see Galahad outboxing Hughes but the intriguing piece is what happens if Hughes connects?
Boxing Challenge
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