BOXING: THIS WEEKEND’S ACTION

BOXING: THIS WEEKEND’S ACTION

By Rachel Aylett

There is no MTK Global card this weekend to get us underway, so the first meaningful action takes place on Saturday in Manchester on a Hennessy Promotions card, televised live in the UK on Spike and Channel 5. Top of the bill is Hughie Fury, returning after his disappointing loss last October to Kubrat Pulev. Fury is pitted against 35 year old Canadian Chris Norrad. What’s that you say? Never heard of him? No, me neither. Father and trainer Peter Fury has told us to expect a “new” Hughie on Saturday. Either the old or the new version of Fury should get this job done early.

On the undercard, British Olympian Savannah Marshall has her sixth pro fight against a 40 year old Bulgarian. Middleweight Marshall has recently been called out by undisputed world champion Claressa Shields, who is already struggling to find opposition. Marshall has a 60% kayo ratio but her punch power will be put to the test on Saturday as opponent Borislava Goranova has only been stopped once in the last 12 years.

Top Rank are in Kissimmee, Florida on Saturday, with a WBO super-featherweight title fight taking place between defending champion Masayuki Ito of Japan and American Olympian Jamel Herring. It will be Ito’s second defence of his belt and also his second appearance in the USA. Herring is the under-achiever of the US 2012 Olympic team, being the last of the nine male boxers to challenge for a championship. He has Top Rank to thank for getting him this opportunity, which is rather undeserved. Ito is 8/13 favourite and should win on points, unless Herring shows us something he has not done so to date.

Also on the Top Rank card, perennial lightweight contender Jose Pedraza returns following his defeat to Vasyl Lomachenko. He has a decent enough opponent in Antonio Lozada, the Mexican who took big Puerto Rican hope Felix Verdejo’s undefeated record last year. Pedraza is 1/7 favourite to win and to avenge his Top Rank associate and fellow countryman.

Matchroom promote in Maryland and go with hot new signing Devin Haney to top their card. Haney is 21-0 (13 kayos) and looks an absolute certainty to win a championship belt within the next 12 months. He takes on Mexican Antonio Moran on Saturday. Moran gave Jose Pedraza a decent test almost a year ago and will probably take Haney all 10 rounds here. American heavyweight Michael Hunter boxes on the undercard and the show is televised in the UK on Sky.

This week’s PBC show is in Biloxi, Mississippi, and goes with veteran super-welterweight contender Austin Trout as top of the bill. Former WBA champion Trout has a tough one, facing another 2012 US Olympian in Terrell Gausha. The latter previously challenged for the WBA belt against Erislandy Lara in October 2017 but came up short. However, that was his only defeat to date. Trout is the 4/9 favourite to win here, but is on a losing run (3 of his last 4 fights). If Trout continues his gradual slide, Gausha is very capable of beating him.

For the connossieurs who like their lighter-weight boxing, the best card of the weekend takes place on Sunday in China. The home country’s Can Xu headlines, defending his WBA (regular) featherweight belt for the first time against Japanese Shun Kubo. Can is a good fighter and it’s nice to see that Chinese boxing did not begin and end with Zou Shiming. Can won his belt in January in one of the best fights of 2019 so far, outpunching Puerto Rican Jesus Rojas in a real slugfest. Although Kubo will be an awkward opponent – he is a tall and long southpaw – look for Can to successfully defend on points.

Also on this card is a brilliant match between two top quality operators. WBA (regular) light-flyweight champion Carlos Canizales of Venezuela defends against Japanese opponent Sho Kimura. The latter is the former WBO champion at flyweight but now moves down a weight to try for a belt in a second division. He is the 4/9 favourite for victory, but Canizales will take him to the wire in the fight of the weekend. This card is being streamed live on the WBA’s website, wbaboxing.com.

Prospect watch: my choice for prospect of the week is big heavyweight Filip Hrgovic from Croatia, who boxes on Matchroom’s Maryland show on Saturday. Hrgovic was bronze medallist at super-heavyweight at Rio 2016, losing to Tony Yoka in the semi-final. Of course, Yoka went on to “beat” Joe Joyce in the final with a hotly-disputed decision. Well, Yoka’s decision over Hrgovic was equally dubious, meaning that we were robbed of seeing a Joyce-Hrgovic final. Regardless, both are going great guns as pros with Hrgovic 7-0 (5 kayos). He should go to 8-0 on Saturday against American Gregory Corbin.