It's a somewhat quiet weekend before three straight big weeks in December, but there is some notable action taking place in Mexico on Saturday night, as Canelo Alvarez, Jorge Arce, and Humberto Soto will all get into the ring.
Wednesday, November 23
TV Max (Panama), 8:00 p.m. EST, Ricardo Nunez vs Juan Esquer. This is an eight-rounder in the flyweight division. The fight will be available live and free and legal online at TV Max's web site.
Friday, November 25
BoxNation (U.K.), 3:00 p.m. EST, Anthony Crolla vs Willie Limond, Matthew Hall vs Kris Carslaw. I don't know if he was jet-lagged or just didn't take the fight seriously, but Crolla (22-2, 9 KO) didn't look good at all deep on the undercard of Mayweather vs Ortiz in September against Juan Montiel (5-5-3, 2 KO). Limond (34-3, 8 KO) and Crolla have a near-connection via Erik Morales, as Limond was one of the hand-picked tune-up opponents for Morales' comeback, and Crolla nearly fought Morales in September. This fight will be for Crolla's British lightweight title. Hall (23-4, 16 KO) may be on his last legs, as he was stopped in a brave six rounds against Lukas Konecny last year, and came back on October 28 to lose a six-round "get well" fight in Manchester. Carslaw (14-0, 3 KO) is taking a big step up in class either way, though.
TyC Sports (Argentina), 7:00 p.m. EST, Pablo Natalio vs Jose Clavero.
Saturday, November 26
Premier Sports (U.K.), 3:00 p.m. EST, Selcuk Aydin vs Jo Jo Dan II, Odlanier Solis vs TBA. In June 2010, Aydin was awarded what many felt was a gift-wrapped split decision over Dan in Turkey. So they're doing this rematch ... in Turkey. Solis is coming back from the knee injury that finished him in the first round against Vitali Klitschko in March. Bad Left Hook will have round-by-round coverage.
TyC Sports (Argentina), 7:00 p.m. EST, Diego Chaves vs Jorge Miranda.
TV Azteca (Mexico) / Fox Deportes (U.S.), 10:00 p.m. EST, Jorge Arce vs Angky Angkotta II, Juan Alberto Rosas vs Zolani Tete. Arce vacated the 122-pound title he won in May by upsetting Wilfredo Vazquez Jr in order to chase a fourth (he believes fifth) weight class title with this one. Arce already ran over Angkotta back in January 2010, a fight in which Angkotta's game plan was to stand against the ropes and let Arce throw a lot of punches. It wasn't very interesting other than trying to figure out what the hell Angkotta was doing. This is for the vacant WBO belt at bantamweight, which has been vacated by Nonito Donaire, who likely will fight for the 122-pound title vacated by Arce. It's nice when people work together. They could have just fought each other instead, as Top Rank wanted, but Arce and his people may have wisely decided against that. It's not a duck when it's that bad of an idea, I think.
Televisa (Mexico), 10:00 p.m. EST, Humberto Soto vs Adailton De Jesus. I guess the absolute master plan of the WBC may be to get Soto a title shot at Erik Morales at 140 pounds, or wait for Morales to vacate his title so he doesn't have to go near Ajose Olusegun but also doesn't appear to be ducking him, as Morales is considering moving down to 135, and then they can just give Soto a vacant title fight and start ignoring that Olusegun even exists. This is your usual garbage Soto fight -- De Jesus (29-6, 23 KO) was totally uncompetitive even against a guy who claimed to be Marco Antonio Barrera on the Chavez vs Duddy card in June 2010. Three months later he was stopped in two by Ricardo Dominguez, who has also been one of Soto's middling opponents.
HBO (U.S.) / Televisa (Mexico), 10:30 p.m. EST, Canelo Alvarez vs Kermit Cintron, Adrien Broner vs Vicente Rodriguez. Alvarez vs Cintron is from Mexico, while Broner vs Rodriguez is from Cincinnati. For those who complained about Peter Manfredo Jr being being approved as an HBO fighter, this fight combined with the Jason Litzau fight in his last outing don't give Broner much better reason to be on the network than Chavez, who is at least a ratings draw. Rodriguez (34-2-1, 19 KO) has a totally empty record and looks unlikely to be another bad Golden Boy read out of Argentina. That this was approved as a vacant WBO title fight is, well, pretty much the usual nonsense. And then there's Cintron, but I'm sure I've said enough about how I feel about that fight's competitive outlook, at least for now. If you combine the ages of Alvarez and Broner, they're younger than Bernard Hopkins and as old as Roy Jones. Bad Left Hook will have round-by-round coverage.