Saturday, January 21, 2023

Boxing Challenge

    The boxing weekend is centered around one card for the second week in a row as this time it's in London for a Frank Warren-promoted card that will be seen on DAZN in the USA.

The main event pairs domestic middleweights Chris Eubank Jr. against Liam Smith with the winner likely to position themselves for a title shot against one of the three division champions.

Eubank is rated in the top five in three organizations, while Smith is moving up from junior middleweight for this fight and is unrated in the division but a win would place him firmly into the title picture.

Chris Eubank is the naturally larger fighter having fought at middleweight and super middleweight and is coming off a nice win over Liam Williams (Williams lost two fights to Smith in 2017) last February before a catchweight fight with unbeaten welterweight Conor Benn was canceled when Benn tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

Smith is on a three-fight winning streak that includes late-round stoppage wins over former contender Jessie Vargas and countryman Anthony Fowler and seems as sharp as he has been over the course of a career that once saw him hold the WBO title.

I lean toward Eubank as the bigger man and I'm not sure Smith has the quality to overcome that disadvantage but he is the more tested fighter and while it might take the performance of his career for Smith to win, I think he has a chance to win a very intriguing fight.

The semi-main event is a very interesting battle with undefeated Richard Riakporhe taking on his sternest test against former WBO cruiserweight champion Krzysztof Glowacki.

Riakporhe owns a few good wins at European-level, most notably a split decision win over Chris Billam-Smith, which is the only loss of Billam-Smith's career and is attempting to move to world-class opposition in former champion Glowacki.

Glowacki took fierce punishment in knockout losses to Mairis Briedia in 2019 and Lawrence Okolie in 2021 before a comeback soft touch win in Poland last April.

Glowacki could be finished and one more knockout defeat could end his status as a world-class contender, so both fighters enter the bout in desperate need of a victory.

Former WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker returns to the ring for the first time since his September knockout loss in the eleventh round to Joe Joyce in a sensational battle.

Parker's defeat was his first ever by knockout and it'll be interesting to see if that has an effect at all on the New Zealand native.

Parker will be facing Jack Massey. who has only one defeat- a unanimous decision loss to Richard Riakporhe in 2019.

It's Massey's only fight against a top opponent and now he'll be facing the experienced Parker but giving away size as well.

Boxing Challenge

Middleweights 12 Rds 
Chris Eubank Jr. vs Liam Smith
Ramon Malpica & TRS: Eubank Unanimous Decision
Vince Samano: Eubank KO 9

Cruiserweights 12 Rds
Richard Riakporhe vs Krzysztof Glowacki
R.L: Riakporhe KO 7
TRS: Riakporhe KO 5
V.S: Riakporhe KO 9

Heavyweights. 10 Rds
Joseph Parker vs Jack Massey
R.L: Parker Unanimous Decision
TRS: Parker KO 8
V.S: Parker KO 6


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