Showtime Shawn Porter is fresh off a win in June over Adrien Broner, and though he's already back in the gym looking for the next fight, the former titleholder will take a short break this coming week to serve as an analyst for PBC on Spike.
Porter will be filling in for Antonio Tarver, who faces Steve Cunningham in the heavyweight main event.
"I know I could wing it and I'll be OK, but in this case with it being such a big show, Spike TV, I'm backing up Antonio Tarver," Porter said. "I have to really represent myself well, my team well and, obviously, boxing. I've been studying both these guys, both Tarver and Cunningham. We'll do some practice all this weekend and probably next week as well."
Tarver (31-6, 22 KO) will be looking to win for a fourth time as a heavyweight, following a 2010 defeat of Nagy Aguilera, and wins in 2013 and 2014 against Mike Sheppard and Johnathon Banks. The 46-year-old former light heavyweight champion and cruiserweight titlist is still targeting a fight with Wladimir Klitschko.
Cunningham (28-7, 13 KO) is a 39-year-old former cruiserweight champion who has seen mixed results as a heavyweight, going 4-3 overall, with losses to Tomasz Adamek, Tyson Fury, and Vyacheslav Glazkov. That said, his losses to Adamek and Glazkov were fairly controversial, and he's acquitted himself nicely in all of his fights at the weight, even in defeat.