Friday, Jan. 29
DonKing.com, TBD, “Return to Greatness”. Don King is promoting a card behind a $19.95 PPV paywall, which would be one thing, except (1) it’s totally up in the air whether or not this actually happens right now, and (2) the web site the card is supposed to stream through pings as a security risk when you try to open it. Best case scenario, this has Mahmoud Charr vs Trevor Bryan. At worst, you’re giving credit card info to a questionable web site. I’ll watch just about anything, even pay to do it, but that’s gonna be a pass from me. Sorry.
Saturday, Jan. 30
This was supposed to be a packed, busy day for boxing, but we lost Avanesyan-Kelly to boxing’s January shutdown in the UK, we lost Beterbiev-Deines to another injury to Beterbiev, and we lost Kovalev-Melikuziev when Kovalev failed a drug test. So we have just one show left to close out a pretty limp January across boxing.
FOX, 8:00 pm ET, Caleb Plant vs Caleb Truax. Plant will be defending his IBF super middleweight title here, heavily favored to hang on to the strap, which is big for him beyond just making a title defense, as he would stay in the mix for a super fight later this year with Canelo Alvarez if things keep going well for both of them. Alvarez wants to fully unify at 168. He’s got two belts (WBC and WBA), he may have a deal to face Billy Joe Saunders (WBO) in May, and that would leave Plant and the IBF if Canelo beats Billy Joe. So yeah, there’s a ton on the line here for Plant past the obvious. Truax is a former titlist but at 37 is past his very best days. He’s the kind of guy who can grind one out if the opponent isn’t dialed in, but you should expect Plant to be taking this fight extremely seriously. The undercard will feature heavyweights Michael Coffie and Darmani Rock squaring off, plus junior middleweight prospect Joey Spencer. BLH will have live coverage.