It was a simpler time when a couple of 12-year-olds could not only be full-time employees of the British Navy, but have a fistfight on the deck under adult supervision. The photo is from Flickr Commons, an incredible repository of digitised versions of the world's public photo archives. I highly recommend you check it out (just try not to develop a full-blown addiction like I have).
Anywho, there's a fair bit of boxing on this week, though most of it is of dubious quality (as you might have been able to tell by the headline). Let's wade through it now.
- Julian Williams vs. Freddy Hernandez, Monday, FS1/Fox Deportes, Boston. Is an up-and-coming prospect taking on a guy who's lost four in a row and five of his last six really main event-worthy stuff? That's what I like to call a rhetorical question, because the junior middleweight bout between Julian Williams (14-0, 8 KO) and Freddy Hernandez (30-6, 20 KO) is really uninspiring stuff. Williams is quite good, if a little lazy with his jab, but this shell of Hernandez should pose him few problems. Crowd-pleasing lightweight Jamie Kavanagh fights on the undercard
- Vanes Martirosyan vs. Mario Alberto Lozano, Friday, ESPN2 Cabazon Calif. Dude, Vanes Martisyan (33-1-1, 21 KO), get out of my sight. I never want to see you again. Just because you had a real fight that you lost by decision does not give you permission to go back to the junior middleweight bum of the month club. Which is what Lozano (28-4, 22 KO), a natural welterweight, amounts to. On the undercard of this Friday Night Fights card, on-again-off-again lightweight Anthony Peterson (32-1, 21 KO) returns for the first time in nearly a year. His opponent, Marcos Leonardo Jiminez (20-4, 13 KO) is a junior lightweight who will at least make an entertaining fight with his willingness to trade.
- Odlanier Solis vs. Tony Thompson, Saturday, Istanbul. This heavyweight division fight seems like a flashback to a few years ago, when Odlanier Solis was considered a possible Klitschko killer, and to the division's golden era in the 70s, when fights travelled to exotic locales. Unfortunately the fight itself is likely to be more 2011 than 1975, with Solis (20-1, 13 KO) skilled but fat and Thompson (38-4, 26 KO) good but old and awkward. To be honest, I think the best we can hope for is a classic Thompson post-fight interview.
- The Rest. On Friday Telemundo have a card from Tampa, Florida, headlined by junior bantamweight Matthew Villanueva (11-1, 9 KO), who's fighting David Carmona (16-2-4, 8 KO)… The next night junior middleweights Jorge Melendez (27-3-1, 26 KO) and Richard Gutierrez (27-12-1, 17 KO) do battle on UniMas from Caguas, Puerto Rico… Defensive bantamweight wizard Anselmo Moreno (34-2-1, 12 KO) fights Javier Chacon (19-1, 4 KO) in Panama the same night… Also that night welterweight Jorge Paez, Jr. (37-4-1, 22 KO) fights Viv Harris (31-9-2, 19 KO) in Mexico. Harris should not have a license to box in Mexico or anywhere else.
