Tonight, Showtime will air the next episode of Fight Camp 360, its documentary-style show about its super middleweight tournament. It might be hard to top last episode, but Allan Green has a big mouth and knows how to use it to hype his bout with Andre Ward this month — the man calls his right Mjolnir after Thor, hilariously — plus it will delve into the best action fight of the tourney so far, Mikkel Kessler-Carl Froch. I’m inclined to agree with some of the hype quotes in the above clip: As well done as HBO’s 24/7 is, Fight Camp 360 is more enjoyable to me because the characters aren’t as stale as the people who have appeared on 24/7 again and again, plus they capture things during and after the fights instead of only in the lead-up.
We’ll have full previews soon on the HBO doubleheader this weekend, as well as the cruiserweight showdown Steve Cunningham-Troy Ross. Until then, here’s the rest of it, and there’s admittedly not much:
- Sebastian Sylvester-Roman Karmazin, Saturday, Germany. Paired with the Cunningham-Ross fight is this middleweight title scrap that has real potential for action. Sylvester’s decision win last year against Giovanni Lorenzo to claim his title was a very good scrap, as was Karmazin’s knockout win over Dionisio Miranda this year to win the title shot. What stifles its potential is that Karmazin, for all his come-from-behind heroics against Miranda, is almost certainly on the decline. Indeed, that he needed come-from-behind heroics is proof of that. Anyway, collectively, it rounds out an interesting two-fight show.
- Friday Night Fights, Friday, ESPN2, Florida. Cuban junior middleweight prospect Yudel Jhonson takes on Juliano Ramos in the headliner. Ramos is probably best known for being Kermit Cintron’s soft touch in Puerto Rico last year; he lost by KO to Cintron and Mike Jones. But he does have 13 KOs in 16 wins, so he offers potential danger. On the undercard is welterweight prospect Kenny Galarza — 13 fights, 13 knockouts, some of them against experienced trial horses — whom I eyeballed in some video just now and the universal praise doesn’t appear misplaced. He fights undefeated Brad Solomon, who beat fellow prospect Ray Robinson last year in a fight on Versus. This one could be interesting. Junior featherweight Guillermo Rigondeaux was originally booked for this date before some managerial and promotional feuding, so this isn’t a bad card in lieu of that by ESPN2.
- Solo Boxeo, Friday, Telefutura, Puerto Rico. This is the first product of the Golden Boy/Miguel Cotto Promotions marriage. Featherweight Luis Cruz is featured; like Galarza, he’s a Puerto Rican prospect with 13 wins (10 by knockout), but his competition has been a touch weaker. As of Monday, his opponent was the never-threatening TBA. Junior featherweight prospect Jayson Velez also was to fight TBA. Early verdict on the marriage: needs some work getting opponents secured earlier. But Cruz’ opponent is now scheduled to be the undefeated but untested Midwesterner Eric Estrada (obviously, not THAT Erik Estrada) and Velez’s opponent is now scheduled to be Shawn Nichol, record 4-2.
- Boxeo Telemundo, Friday, Telemundo, Florida. The Telemundo cards are showing signs of improvement of late, or so it seems to me. The headliner this time is lightweight Mercito Gesta, part of the apparently infinite supply of Filipino prospects, and his opponent, Oscar Meza, already beat one prospect — Jorge Paez Jr. — but lost to another — Brandon Rios. On the undercard, minor TQBR fave Edner Cherry moves to junior lightweight, where he fights Ira Terry, last seen getting blasted out impressively by Carlos Velazquez on ShoBox in April.
- The Rest. Selcuk Aydin was going to fight Luis Collazo for an interim welterweight title before Collazo pulled out to move up to junior middleweight — Collazo has misfired a bit late on his career, no? — but now he’ll fight Jo Jo Dan. We have to talk about that name for a second because there’s little else on his record to discuss. That’s just his alias. Apparently his real name is Ionut Dan Ion. His name is also not to be confused with Cio-Cio San, fans of Weezer and Puccini… Flyweight Edgar Sosa returns from that weird fight with Rodel Mayol and a triple-fractured face, where he’ll fight at the weight once more despite talk of moving up; his opponent is Roberto Leyva, a former titlist who mainly loses since 2002… Also in action: former light heavyweight contender Yusaf Mack and former heavyweight contender Juan Carlos Gomez, both rebounding from losses in their recent past.
