Wow, there’s not much going on this Doce de Mayo weekend. Maybe that’s because Doce de Mayo isn’t actually a Mexican holiday, it just means 12th of May in Spanish. What has this got to do with the video above? Or the boxing schedule for that matter? Very little, though that violent video is rather mesmerising.
Like I said, there ain’t much on. This biggest fight of the weekend is probably the third fight between Brian Viloria and Omar Nino.
- Brian Viloria vs. Omar Nino, Saturday, Integrated Sports Pay-Per-View, Pasig City Phillipines. Coming off his first flyweight title defence against Giovani Segura, Viloria finally gets a rematch of two 2006 fights with Mexico’s Omar Nino, which ended in a points defeat and a controversial no contest. Both fights were very fun, with the two then-junior flyweights alternating between boxing and brawling. Viloria (30-3) is powerful but not without technique, nor the ability to throw punches in bunches. He’s carried his pop up a division too, grotesquely altering Giovanni Segura’s face last year. You could say a lot of the same things about Nino (31-4-2), who outhustled Viloria the first time round and had his second (close) victory turned into a no contest when he tested positive for a banned substance. Viloria has never looked better than he did against Segura, making the then p4p entrant look embarrassingly slow and unskilled. Nino, meanwhile, is just one fight removed from a punishing loss to Mexican vet Gilberto Keb Baas. With Viloria seemingly having the stars aligning at his new weight and Nino coming towards the end of a 17-year pro career, the Filipino would be the smart tip here.
- The Rest. On Saturday, HBO replays the two headlining fights from the Floyd Mayweather-Miguel Cotto headlined PPV. It also debuts Jim Lampley’s new boxing studio show… Cuban junior middleweight prospect and Olympic silver medallist Yhudel Johnson (12-0) takes on Willie Nelson (17-1-1) on ShoBox on Friday night in Las Vegas. Johnson is supposed to be more aggressive than your standard Cuban. All your standard Cubans are more aggressive than your standard Cuban these days, supposedly… Junior lightweight Vicente Escobedo (25-3) fights Juan Ruiz (23-9) in Woodland, California on Saturday on Telefutura while he waits for his momentum from wins against Rocky Juarez and Lonnie Smith to get him a big fight. Adrien Broner anyone?… Olympic silver medallist and much watched Kazakh middleweight Gennady Golovkin (22-0) fights Makoto Fuchigami (19-6) at a venue called the Ice Palace “Terminal” (not my quotes) in the Ukraine on Saturday. Sounds cool. Also, a big weekend for Olympic silver medalists.
