WBC, IBF, and WBO light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev will defend his three championships against his top challenger in the WBO rankings against hometown contender Anthony Yarde in London on ESPN Plus.
Beterbiev has ground every opponent to pieces under his unrelenting aggressiveness as no one has survived to the final bell against the three-belt champion.
Beterbiev impressively grabbed the WBO title last June with a two-round demolition of another big puncher in Joe Smith and has to be in consideration as the bigger puncher in the sport.
Yarde is no slouch with twenty-two knockouts in his twenty-three wins but is best known for his loss to then-WBO champion Sergey Kovalev, in which he fought well but tired badly in the late rounds before being stopped in 2019.
Yarde has won five of six since, the loss coming via split decision to Lyndon Arthur with Yarde evening the score in the rematch with a fourth-round knockout.
Yarde should have success early but if he wilted against a fading Kovalev, what makes anyone think that he will hold up against the suffocating pressure of Beterbiev.
The co-feature will showcase the smooth boxing WBA flyweight champion Artem Dalakian facing his mandatory contender David Jimenez.
Dalakian has defended the title five times since upsetting Brian Viloria in February 2018, including a ninth-round knockout of Luis Concepcion in his most recent defense in November 2021.
Jimenez earned the title opportunity with a majority decision win over Ricardo Sandoval last July on the Ryan Garcia-Javier Fortuna undercard.
The other challenge bout is the evening main event on DAZN from Golden Boy as welterweight Alexis Rocha continues his rebound from his only loss to Rashidi Ellis in 2020.
Rocha has defeated Blair Cobbs and Jesus Campos in his four-fight winning streak and could be on the verge of reaching contention later this year.
Rocha's original opponent was scheduled as veteran Anthony Young but Young was forced out of the fight with a nose injury suffered in sparring with the replacement slot going to George Ashie.
Ashie is a veteran who at 38 has never beaten a fighter of world-class talent but has never been stopped so should Rocha win by knockout it would be a feather in his cap.
Boxing Challenge
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