We’re back to using old timey images with the schedule. This one, via Flickr Commons and the Library of Congress, is of various British amateur boxers visiting New York in 1911. They don’t rock jumpsuits and moustaches like they used to. There’s a big old show this week and not much else, so we may as well jump right on in. There’ll be a more in depth preview of that card along later in the week, to boot.
- Robert Guerrero Vs. Yoshihiro Kamegai, Saturday, Showtime, Carson Calif. If this week were a town in the Wild West, it would be a one horse town. And this show would be that town. Which would make the boxers on the card the fleas on the horse. This metaphor would be like a bacteria in the fleas’ butts or something. Anyway, you get the picture — there’s not much on. But this card is pretty rocking. Not so much the main event, in which welterweight Robert Guerrero (remember him, he fought Floyd Mayweather, Jr. like, a year ago) fight Japan’s Yoshihiro Kamegai (you probably don’t remember him from anything, he’s not even in the fight trailer). Kamegai (24-1-1, 21 KO) is a come forward kind of dude who will make Guerrero (31-2-1, 18 KO) look more like the warrior who fought Andre Berto than no-hoper who fought Mayweather. The real attraction will be the bout between amateur sensations Vasyl Lomachenko (1-1, 1 KO) and Gary Russell, Jr. (24-0, 14 KO). I honest to God have no idea who is going to win, but it looks set to be an awe inspiring clash between Lomachenko’s fluidity and heavy hand and Russell’s lightning handspeed. Despite only having had two fights, Lomachenko has more top-level pro experience than Russell, who has been brought on frustratingly slowly since he turned professional in 2009. The eternal boxing fan/analyst’s problem of small historical samples is magnified to an absurd degree here because of Lomachenko and Russell’s respective lack of quantity and quality fights, respectively. I’ll just be glad to watch it. Rounding out the televised undercard is a welterweight bout between Devon Alexander (25-2, 14 KO) and Jesus Soto Karass (28-9-3, 18 KO). I’d say that Mexican vet Soto Karass is too aggressive to let Alexander spoil like he normally does, but that would greatly underestimate Alexander’s ability to spoil. I really hope this turn out to be a typical Soto Karass slugfest, but I’m not counting on it. On the Sho Extreme portion of the card, light heavyweight Chad Dawson (31-3, 17 KO) has his first fight since getting #rekt by Adonis Stevenson a year ago. It’s against the undistinguished, but well named George Blades (23-5, 16 KO).
- The Rest. On Thursday on FS1/Fox Deportes, there’s a card from Puerto Rico headlined by the slightly less ridiculously named Arroyo brother (McWilliams, whose brother McJoe just upset Hernan Marquez). Arroyo (14-1, 12 KO) is facing flyweight Froilan Saludar (19-0-1, 12 KO), while junior featherweight Cesar Seda (25-2, 17 KO) is fighting Alex Rangel (15-2-2, 9 KO)… On Saturday on NBC Sports Net there is a fight that nobody would care about were it not for an eliminator for a shot at one of Bernard Hopkins’ light heavyweight belts. It’s between the unfortunately named Anatoliy Dudchenko (19-2, 13 KO) and Nadjib Mohammedi (34-3, 20 KO)… Meanwhile in Monte Carlo there’s a South African-promoted card (go figure), headlined by middleweights Martin Murray (27-1-1, 12 KO) and Max Bursak (29-2-1, 12 KO. It could end up being quite a tear up, despite neither man packing much of a punch. The undercard features South African strawweight and light heavyweight contenders Hekkie Budler and Thomas Oosthuizen.
