TV and Internet Fight Schedule - Weekend of December 11

Tuesday, December 7

Gofightlive.tv, 8:00 p.m. Eastern, Oliver McCall vs. Fres Oquendo, Brad Solomon vs. Agnes Adjaho.  On Tuesday, the Heavyweight Factory has their monthly card at the Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood, Florida, featuring a strange crossroads fight.  McCall lost his last time to Timur Ibragimov and is now 45 years old.  Fres lost his last time out to Jean Marc Mormeck and seems to get robbed every time he faces a notable opponent.  On the undercard, Solomon, only three weeks removed from a gimme fight in Nicaragua, will fight former lightweight contender Adjaho. And since the promoter's focus seems to have already shifted away from turning former elite athletes into elite heavyweights, a number of Cuban defectors, such as Luis Ortiz, Richard Abril and Innocente Fiz, as well as Russian super heavyweight amateur champ Magomed Abdusalamov, are also scheduled to fight.  Bad Left Hook will have live round by round coverage of this fight.

Wednesday, December 8

Main Event (Australia), 3:30 a.m. Eastern, Anthony Mundine vs. Garth Wood, Billy Dib vs. Mick Shaw.  This one's even more pathetic than the usual Mundine card.  Wood is another former Rugby player, who won Australia's version of The Contender and has never fought below super middleweight.  This fight will be at middleweight, where Mundine is moving back up for a fight and Wood is moving down.  Dib takes on a journeyman opponent, and the rest of the fights on the PPV card are bad enough that they don't warrant mentioning.

Thursday, December 9

Integrated Sports PPV, Polsat Sport (Poland), 8:00 p.m. Eastern ($29.95), Tomasz Adamek vs. Vinny Maddalone, Sadam Ali vs. Manuel Guzman, Patrick Majewski vs. Eddie Caminero, Gabriel Rosado vs. Jose Medina.  Adamek takes a stay-busy fight against veteran club fighter Maddalone.  Majewski is another New Jersey-based Pole who is trying to build up a following in the area.  Ali was a U.S. Olympian in 2008, but is taking a step back in competition for this one.  Rosado almost got his minute in the sun after upsetting Kassim Ouma and giving Fernando Guerrero a close fight, but he's lost a lot of steam since doing the chicken dance against Alfredo Angulo.  Tarvis Simms is also slated to fight on the card, his first since losing to Allan Green and then getting arrested for getting into a brawl with his twin brother, former titlist and city councilman Travis. 

Friday, December 10

Direct TV (Argentina), circa 9:00 p.m. Eastern, Hector David Saldivia vs. Jorge Daniel Miranda.  Saldivia has won twice since getting knocked out in the first round of the Mayweather-Mosley undercard.  Miranda is a decent opponent with a few good wins, but he usually loses when he steps up, and Saldivia already owns a KO-1 win over him. 

TeleFutura, 11:30 p.m. Eastern, Luis Cruz vs. Wilfredo Acuna, Jonathan Gonzalez vs. Gundrick King.  Cruz is a 16-0 featherweight prospect, while Gonzalez is a 10-0 light middleweight fighter.

Telemundo, 11:35 p.m. Eastern, Antonio Pitalua vs. Ed Paredes.  The best Telemundo fight in a while pits former lightweight titlist Pitalua against Miami-based propsect Paredes, who became more prominent after knocking out Joey Hernandez in a rematch.

Saturday, December 11

Sky Sports PPV (UK), Polsat Sport (Poland), 2:00 p.m. Eastern, Paul Smith vs. James DeGale, Nathan Cleverly vs. Alejandro Lakatos, Kell Brook vs. Philip Kotey, Matthew Macklin vs. Ruben Veron, Tony Bellew vs. Orvil McKenzie, Frankie Gavin vs. Dean Harrison.  The "return" of the magnificent seven features a lot of the same names as the first such card but very few of the competitive matchups, but the nine-hour marathon is probably worth getting between volume and having fights from three different countries on the same card.  The best fight on the UK part of the card, by a long shot, is 2008 Olympic gold medalist Degale against Paul "Smigga" Smith, a contestant on the super middleweight version of The Contender who is the reigning British champion.  Fellow 2008 Olympian "Funtime" Frankie Gavin takes his first real step up in class against former British title challenger Harrison.  Tony Bellew defends his commonwealth light heavyweight title against former Commonwealth titlist and upset specialist McKenzie, a fight that looks much better now that Bellew nearly lost his last fight to the unknown Bob Ajisafe.  The other fights on the card (which will include Klitschko-Chisora) basically amount to walkover showcase fights.  The card will also include Amir Khan's defense against Marcos Maidana.  Bad Left Hook will have live round by round coverage of this fight.

RTL (Germany), Sky Sports PPV (UK), 4:45 p.m. Eastern (RTL), Wladimir Klitschko vs. Dereck Chisora.  The only reason Chisora isn't a member of the bum of the month club is that modern fighters only fight quarterly, at best.  That said, it's not like the other top heavyweights are exactly chomping at the bit to get in the squared circle with Wladimir in order to get a career-high payday. The German card will likely also feature Ola Afolabi against Lubos Suda, although Andy Lee is also scheduled to fight on the undercard.  Bad Left Hook will have live round by round coverage of this fight.

Cadena Tres (Mexico), circa 9:00 p.m. Eastern, Juan Antonio Rodriguez vs. Genaro Camargo.

Showtime, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, Yohnny Perez vs. Joseph Agbeko II, Vic Darchinyan vs. Abner Mares.  In the first stage of Showtime's mini-bantamweight tournament, Perez rematches Agbeko in what was a fight of the year candidate in 2009, while Vic takes on the slickest boxer he's faced since losing to Nonito Donaire.  In their first matchup, Perez and Agbeko almost certainly would have broken all records for pucnhes thrown, had anyone been keeping track.  I decided to count for myself in one round, and I counted Perez throwing nearly 160 punches in that round while Agbeko himself threw over 100.  While it's been flying under the radar, this one's another fight of the year candidate.  Darchinyan is a boxer/slugger/crabber who moves up in weight to take on the technically sound Mares in a fight that is tough to call on paper.  Bad Left Hook will have live round by round coverage of this card.

HBO, Sky Sports PPV (UK), 9:30 p.m. Eastern, Amir Khan vs. Marcos Maidana, Victor Ortiz vs. Lamont Peterson.  Khan-Maidana is a study in contrasts.  Maidana might be the biggest pound for pound puncher in the world right now.  Khan almost certainly has the worst chin for any elite level fighter out there.  Khan might be the fastest fighter in the world right now, while Maidana's speed is middling at best.  I doubt either Scott or I can tell you what you don't already know - Khan has way too much class for Maidana, but Maidana has way too much power for Khan.  The result of this fight is 100% dependent on whether Maidana can catch up with Khan and sufficiently tag him on the chin to knock him out.  Ortiz is still seeking redemption after his quit job disheartening post-fight interview after his bout with Maidana.  Peterson is a start, although he was so thoroughly outclassed by Timothy Bradley that it's hard to tell how good he really is.  The untelevised undercard is tentatively scheduled to feature Danny Jacobs, Joan Guzman, Seth Mitchell, Sharif Bogere, Frankie Gomez and Jesse Vargas, so hopefully that will be aired via free live webstream at Yahoo.com.  Bad Left Hook will (try to) have live round by round coverage of the main event, assuming the Showtime card ends quickly enough.

Fox Sports Net, Fox Sports Espanol, Televisa (Mexico), 10:00 p.m. Eastern, Fernando Montiel vs. Eduardo Garcia, Juan Alberto "Topo" Rosas vs. Cristian Mijares.  Here's one to set the DVR for, if you're watching the HBO and/or Showtime cards instead.  Montiel takes a relatively easy title defense against former title challenger Garcia.  Garcia has some decent scalps on his record, including wins over Sebastien Gauthier and Nick Otieno and a draw against Olivier Lontchi, but Montiel should probably be too much for him.  Theoretically, Montiel winning this one sets up a February bout between Montiel and Nonito Donaire, although that fight has been postponed several times before.  The real attraction here is Rosas, making his first title defense against former pound for pounder Mijares.  Rosas is a scrappy late bloomer who likes to drive forward and pound on the inside, and occasionally use his wacky hairdos as a weapon.  Mijares is a southpaw cutie who ascended the ranks quickly, but dropped off the face of boxing's collective consciousness when he lost to Vic Darchinyan and and twice to Nehomar Cermeno (who was unknown at the time, but has turned out to be a pretty good fighter).  Also scheduled for the off-TV undercard, and a good fight on paper, is Joksan Hernandez vs. Jorge Lacierva.  This is Hernandez's sixth fight this year - after losing to Eduardo Escobedo, he's rattled off four wins, three of them against good competition.  Lacierva has bounced back well since losing a disgustingly ugly decision to Celestino Caballero.  The winner of this one has an argument to be ranked in the top 10 of a very weak super featherweight division.  The Televisa broadcast will also show Mares-Darchinyan.

• On Friday, Randall Bailey will face Said Ouali in a welterweight title eliminator. How this fight ended up in Belgium, who knows.  Perhaps the promoter of Bailey's last victim, Jackson Bonsu, has options on Bailey.  In either case, the winner of this one will have the right to face Jan Zaveck. It could be a good little fight, as Bailey still has a shotgun right hand but has a shaky chin himself, while Ouali has a wide open offensive style that tends to lead to him getting hit a lot.  
• On Saturday, Jeff Lacy will continue his boxing career against 23-19-7 Dhafir Smith for the International Super Middleweight Belt Out Of My Closet Title.  This is Lacy's first time back since losing to Roy Jones Jr., but he honestly hasn't looked good since fighting Scott Pemberton way back in 2005.  Incidentally, the fight is at Jannus Landing in St. Petersburg, where the author attended way too many ska concerts back in the '90's.