The biggest takes place in Nottingham, England as Matchroom presents what should be a guaranteed barnburner as Leigh Wood defends the WBA featherweight title against the uber-aggressive Mauricio Lara.
Wood was promoted to full WBA champion when Leo Santa Cruz decided to finally vacate the title, rather than face Wood after sitting on it for close to three years without a defense and is entering the fight on an eleven-month layoff after his final round fight of the year knockout of Michael Conlan.
Lara's biggest win came in 2021 when he ripped through Josh Warrington in nine rounds after Warrington had given up his IBF title for expected bigger fights.
A head clash in the rematch forced a technical draw and Lara has scored two third-round knockouts in stay-busy fights of his own after the Warrington rematch.
Wood's best bet might be to try to outbox Lara and keep Lara on the outside but he might not be strong enough to do that and yet he also might not be strong enough to stand his ground and slug with Lara.
Lara can be outboxed and I wouldn't be surprised to see Wood have success against Lara but something tells me that Lara grinds down a game Wood in the late rounds.
In the evening, Golden Boy takes over with a WBC junior featherweight eliminator that also promises an action battle as former WBC bantamweight and junior featherweight champion Luis Nery is matched with Azat Hovannisyan.
At bantamweight, Nery was receiving votes as a top ten pound-for-pound fighter but his form at 122 pounds hasn't been quite as strong despite winning a world title.
Nery suffered his only loss via seventh-round KO to lose his title to Brandon Figueroa in 2021 and has notched two wins since, a split decision over Carlos Castro and a third-round knockout over David Carmona last October.
Hovannisyan has lost only once since starting his career with two losses in his first eight fights but that was against the best opponent of his career in his only title try against Rey Vargas.
If Nery is close to his past level, this would be all his way but I'm not sure if that Nery still exists, and if his chin has become vulnerable then Hovannisyan has a real chance of pulling a minor upset.
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