DAZN and Social Media, 4:00 pm ET, Zurdo vs Boesel press conference.
DAZN and YouTube, 8:00 pm ET, Angel Acosta vs Janiel Rivera. Golden Boy Thursdays are back quickly! Figure on one a month, but we’ll see how long they last this time around. Acosta-Rivera isn’t as good a matchup on paper as Diaz-Gesta was, but Acosta always comes to bang, and someone pretty much always gets stopped (21 KOs in his 22 wins, stopped twice in his three losses). BLH will have live coverage.
UFC Fight Pass, 10:00 pm ET, Callum Walsh vs Luis Garcia. This is a “Hollywood Fight Night” card at Quiet Cannon Country Club in Montebello, Calif., and the advertised main event is this six-rounder. It’s mainly novice pros, but some definitely some legitimate prospects on the card.
DAZN, 2:00 pm ET, Daniele Scardina vs Giovanni De Carolis.
DAZN and Social Media, 4:00 pm ET, Zurdo vs Boesel weigh-in.
ESPN+, 1:00 pm ET, Tony Yoka vs Martin Bakole. This is actually a pretty good fight, a decent next step for Yoka and a good chance for Bakole. ESPN+ are listing two different start times, 1 pm ET and 2 pm ET, so I’m putting the 1 pm ET. They are also listing Yoka’s opponent as Carlos Takam.
FITE PPV, 2:00 pm ET, Floyd Mayweather “vs” Don Moore. Yes, you can order this with regular money ($29.99) and not just with cryptocurrency. Amazing! This is an exhibition from Dubai on a helipad on top of a hotel, but there are also normal, sanctioned fights on the show, including Badou Jack vs Hany Atiyo and Delfine Persoon vs Elhem Mekhaled (I was right to be skeptical that they’d have Persoon-Hamadouche 2). Anderson Silva is on the card, too, and I can’t tell if that’s sanctioned or “exhibition” but probably full speed. In a terrible turn of events, I will be covering this for anyone who is remotely interested. Personally I’d rather watch Yoka-Bakole, but this is just going to have more lookie-loo sort of interest out there. If you’re watching Yoka-Bakole, feel free to come by the post for this one and talk about it with us in the comments. We’ll just be pretty freewheelin’ anyway and I’m sure I’ll have Yoka-Bakole on in the background, too. BLH will have live coverage.
DAZN, 8:00 pm ET, Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez vs Dominic Boesel. We’re short-staffed on Saturday so while usually we’d have someone doing this live, we won’t this week. It’s not worth the effort to split up coverage on this (or the next thing listed) when the big fight is so much more meaningful, with so much more interest. We’ll have highlights and stuff for you after it’s over, though.
FITE, 9:00 pm ET, Sergey Kovalev vs Tervel Pulev, Kubrat Pulev vs Jerry Forrest. This was originally set to start early at 6 pm ET, because the real thing selling tickets and whatnot to these events is the rap battles, but then they switched it to 9 ET, directly head-to-head with Showtime. I had planned to cover this and then they made that switch and, well, nah. Kovalev hasn’t fought since his 2019 loss to Canelo Alvarez, and is moving up to cruiserweight against the other Pulev, who is just as much 39 years old as Kovalev but without the, you know, career achievements or anything. Kubrat vs Forrest is an OK fight for what it is, and there are some offspring of good fighters on the undercard, including Evan Holyfield. I’d say we’ll have highlights but FITE/Triller usually don’t have much on their cards, which is too bad. If they do, we will. If not, we won’t.
SHO, 9:00 pm ET, Jermell Charlo vs Brian Castano 2. The real fight of the week, obviously, a rematch of a draw as these two try again to crown an undisputed champion at 154 lbs. The undercard features Jaron Ennis vs Custio Clayton in an IBF welterweight eliminator, plus Kevin Gonzalez vs Emanuel Rivera. Charlo-Castano was a really good fight last time and should be again, along with being really significant, a proper 1 vs 2 (or as I figure it since last July, 1A vs 1B). Despite Charlo’s big talk, they were evenly matched before, and both sound determined to not leave it up to the judges again. BLH will have live coverage.