If there’s one advantage of living on the other side of the world, it’s that we have summer when you have winter. Here in Sydney Australia, not much happens in January. People escape town and the heat and go to the beach; there’s no traffic and no hassles. The boxing schedule has been reflecting that. All good things must come to an end, though, and as work and life slowly begin to return to normal at the end of January, so too does the pugilistic timetable. This might be depressing to those of you who have been living through cold, stressful, dark Januaries without even boxing to comfort you. Actually, that was the idea. I’m just trying to make myself feel better about moving away from all the action.
This week marks the beginning of the new boxing series on NBC Sports, formerly Versus. Showtime has top junior featherweights Rico Ramos and Guillermo Rigondeaux in a fight that is very intriguing, at a minimum. There’s a bunch of fights happening in Britlandia that will be previewed in depth by the suave and good looking Andrew Harrison later in the week, as well as stay busy type fights for Miguel Vazquez, Daniel Ponce De Leon and Lucas Matthyse.
The video above does involve punching, but TQBR usually isn’t into random Internet violence videos. He was doing it for a good reason, though. Don’t drink and drive (around that guy).
- Rico Ramos vs. Guillermo Rigondeaux, Friday, Showtime, Las Vegas. The boss, Tim, will have the full preview of this oft-rescheduled junior featherweight fight later this week. Rigondeaux is a super prospect. His 8-0 record belies his two Olympic gold medals and over 400 amateur fights. He’s look alternatively explosive, like in his destructive KO of Willie Casey, and pedestrian, like in his absolute stinker of a split decision victory over Ricardo Cordoba. Ramos (20-0) is technically sound (at least in comparison to anybody else) and has had a more traditional pro career. He’s coming off a come from behind KO victory over Akifumi Shimoda, in a fight that might have highlighted some of his limitations. Hopefully both men will rise to the occasion and this will be as good as its potential.
- Maurice Byarm vs. Bryant Jennings and Gabriel Rosado vs. Jesus Soto Karass, Saturday, Philadelphia, NBC Sports. That artist formerly know as Versus’ new boxing series is getting off to an inauspicious start. Siarhei Liakhovich was left without an opponent after Eddie Chambers dropped out of their heavyweight fight citing a rib injury. Their fight has been scrapped and replaced as the main event by a clash between two little-known Philadelphia heavyweight prospects, Maurice Byarm (13-0-1) and Bryant Jennings (11-0). It’s an interesting gamble on the part of Kathy Duva, the show’s promoter. Opening with two unknown and potentially very green heavyweights could be a disaster, but it gives the Philadelphia show a great Rocky-esque storyline and could be fun. Gabriel Rosado is also fighting, against Jesus Soto Karass in a junior middleweight fringe contender type bout. It figures to be pretty fun, with Rosado (18-5) and Soto Karass (24-6) always coming to fight but tending to lose against fighters who are a bit better than them. Given an even match up against one another, they could produce a really nice brawl.
- The Rest. As previously mentioned, there are noteworthy fights in Britain that Andrew Harrison will be previewing and covering. First up, on Friday, there’s lightweight “Dirty” Derry Matthews (29-5-1) fighting Italy’s Emiliano Marsili (23-0-1) in Liverpool. Then on Saturday there’s a clash of British heavyweights in the same city, with David Price (11-0) fighting John McDermott (26-7)… Junior welterweight favourite Lucas Matthyse (29-2) stays busy in his native Argentina on Friday against Silverio Ortiz (23-13)… Featherweight Daniel Ponce De Leon (41-4) does something similar in Tijuana against Omar Estrella (15-3-2) on Saturday, on AT&T U-verse… So does lightweight Miguel Vazquez (29-3) on the same day in Guadalajara, taking on Ameth Diaz (30-10)… gofightlive.tv has a show Thursday, Telemundo has one Friday and TeleFutura has one Saturday… HBO’s new documentary, “On Freddie Roach” debuts on Friday night. By all reports (including our own) it’s a quality piece of programming that you should catch.
