Friday, January 27

ESPN2 / ESPN3, 9 p.m. EST, Ruslan Provodnikov vs David Torres, Ji Hoon Kim vs Yakubu Amidu. This week's edition of Friday Night Fights features a pair of all-action Banner Promotions guys who have paired together on the series before in Provodnikov and Kim. Provodnikov was originally suppoesd to face Julio Diaz and Kim originally had a better fight lined up, but it unsurprisingly fell through.

Provodnikov (20-1, 13 KO) may be more interesting than it appears on paper here, as he's taking this fight despite suffering a cut that originally figured to cancel his date here. The cut was suffered in a closer-than-scored December 5 win over DeMarcus Corley in Russia. Torres (21-2-2, 13 KO) has a nice-looking record but is 1-2-2 in his last five and was stopped by both Julio Diaz and Raymundo Beltran in the losses. He's 0-2-1 in his last three, drawing with washed-up versions of Santos Pakau and Michael Stewart. The co-feature has Kim (22-7, 18 KO) back in action against Amidu (20-2-1, 18 KO). South Korea's Kim has a right hand and literally nothing else going for him. Amidu got onto last season's Friday Night Fights season finale, beating Martin Tucker via TKO-3 in a swing bout. His losses have come to Ricky Burns and Ali Funeka.

Provodnikov has been training with Freddie Roach at the Wild Card Gym, but Roach won't be in Provodnikov's corner for this fight. Bad Left Hook will have live, round-by-round coverage.

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The February 11 rematch between Victor Ortiz and Andre Berto will come with a two-part Fight Camp 360 feature, the first episode airing on February 1 at 10 p.m. EST/PST, and the second episode premiering on February 18, a week after the fight, accompanying Showtime's Paul Williams vs Nobuhiro Ishida card.

"If you look at the level of promotion and support that we are putting into Ortiz-Berto II, you'd assume that Feb. 11 was a pay-per-view event," said Stephen Espinoza, Executive Vice President and General Manager, SHOWTIME Sports.

"Producing an Ortiz-Berto II version of Fight Camp 360° allows fight fans to get excited about a fight that comes without the pay-per-view price tag, just as the network did with Fight Camp 360°: Inside the Super Six World Boxing Classic. Both Victor and Andre have astounding background stories -- not to mention a lot to prove on Feb. 11 -- so I expect the series to be captivating to our core boxing audience and general sports fans alike."

[ Related: Ortiz vs Berto II Event Page ]

The full schedule is after the jump.

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Here's the full list of fights that HBO will be featuring in their year-end retrospective largely designed to be watched by nobody in non-prime hours:

• Jean Pascal vs Bernard Hopkins II (Dec. 26, 11 p.m. EST)
• Andre Berto vs Victor Ortiz (Dec. 27, Midnight EST)
• Floyd Mayweather Jr vs Victor Ortiz (Dec. 27, 11 p.m. EST)
• Manny Pacquiao vs Juan Manuel Marquez III (Dec. 28, Midnight EST)
• Alfredo Angulo vs James Kirkland (Dec. 29, Midnight EST)
• Miguel Cotto vs Antonio Margarito II (Dec. 29, 11 p.m. EST)

By the way, if you have difficulty telling time or understanding what "Midnight" is, watch the video for the dates. December 28 at Midnight is listed as December 27 by HBO, etc. You get it.

The fights chosen are no surprise. They had better fights, but these are the six you'd expect them to go with, and they have. And I know deep down that a lot more people care about these fights than they do Maidana vs Morales and DeMarco vs Linares. So I get it.

We've lost a couple of scheduled cards for this weekend, with Klitschko vs Mormeck and DeGale vs Guerrero off overseas, but there's still a lot of televised boxing, and it all starts in, well, a few hours. And Saturday night is the final live HBO boxing card of 2011. Another year gone!

Wednesday, December 7

TBS (Japan), 5:00 a.m. EST, Daiki Kameda vs Tepparith Kokietgym, Koki Kameda vs Mario Macias. All three Kameda brothers will be in action on this one, but Daiki vs Tepparith is officially the main event, and will be going on last. Daiki (22-2, 14 KO) will be challenging for the WBA super flyweight title held by Tepparith (18-2, 12 KO), whom you've likely already guessed is from Thailand. Tepparith, 23, won the interim belt in May in his last fight, and was promoted to full champion status when they made the highly controversial decision to move rightful titleholder Tomonobu Shimizu to "champion in recess" due to an injury, even though he's said he's willing to fight and has complained about the whole thing.

Anyway, that's a mess. Koki (26-1, 16 KO) is taking another water-treader against Macias (23-7, 11 KO), the 11th ranked contender to the WBA's bantamweight title. Kameda, of course, holds the "regular" title, while Anselmo Moreno holds the "super" belt. Great stuff. Highlights of Tomoki Kameda (21-0, 13 KO) vs Eduardo Garcia (21-6-1, 9 KO) will also be seen. Bad Left Hook will attempt to have round-by-round coverage of this show.

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It's a huge, huge, big ol' week in boxing, and there are notable fights that promise action all over the globe. We're going to have a lot of live coverage all week -- which will start late tonight if we're lucky -- so make sure you're here.

NOTE: Yes, we will have live coverage of both major cards on Saturday night (Cotto vs Margarito II on HBO PPV, and Mares vs Agbeko II on Showtime).

Wednesday, November 30

Main Event PPV (Australia) / Polsat (Poland), 3:30 a.m. EST, Krzysztof Wlodarczyk vs Danny Green, Chris John vs Stanislav Merdov, Daud Yordan vs Frankie Archuleta, Will Tomlinson vs Alan Herrera. Wlodarczyk and Green are fighting for the Pole's WBC cruiserweight title, and before you write off the chances of Green in this one, know that the 30-year-old Wlodarczyk has not looked himself in his last two fights, tough and even debated wins over Francisco Palacios and Jason Robinson, not exactly top contenders. Both of the main eventers here appear to be on the downside of their careers, if not close to done. Honestly, if Green can't win this one, or at least have a good argument for winning, he should probably hang it up. He's 38, he's made good money the last couple of years, and he's got nothing more to prove, or that he can really accomplish. Chris John is back in the co-feature, doing his Chris John thing where he defends his belt against a non-contender, and then you have Yordan taking on the ultra-shot Archuleta, and Aussie super featherweight Tomlinson (17-0-1, 12 KO) in against Mexico's Herrera (26-3, 17 KO). Bad Left Hook will attempt to have live, round-by-round coverage of this card.

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The upcoming new season of ESPN Friday Night Fights has a pair of January cards in place, and both look to continue in the tradition of the very strong 2011 season.

On January 6 from Key West (where ESPN loves to do a January show), the season debut of the series will feature super middleweights Dyah Davis (20-2-1, 9 KO) and Alfonso Lopez (22-1, 17 KO) in the main event.

Davis, 30, won a pair of fights this year, including a ShoBox upset of Marcus "Too Much" Johnson in April. In October, he defeated respected trial horse Darnell Boone over six rounds in Connecticut.

Lopez, 29, is best-known (or only known) for his decent showing against a rusty Kelly Pavlik on the Pacquiao vs Mosley pay-per-view in May, where he lost a majority decision in a fight where he had a perfectly good argument for winning six of the ten rounds. Judges scored that one 95-95 (which was what I had), and then 99-91 and 98-92 for Pavlik, which was a little transparent. In September, Lopez beat Michael Walker in Texas.

In the co-feature, a pair of hard-punching junior middleweight prospects will hook up, as 21-year-old Stevie Martinez (11-0, 9 KO) faces 27-year-old Jonathan Cepeda (11-0, 10 KO). The swing bout fight will feature DiBella Entertainment middleweight prospect J'Leon Love (9-0, 6 KO). Love, 24, is currently in camp with Team Margarito.

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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.

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Showtime's Fight Camp 360 returns on Wednesday, November 30, at 10 p.m. EST/PST, as the Super Six World Boxing Classic closes in on its biggest night, when Andre Ward and Carl Froch meet in the tournament final on December 17 in Atlantic City.

There will also be another new episode debuting on Wednesday, December 7, also at 10 p.m. EST/PST.

Here are the upcoming broadcast times for Fight Camp 360, as well as some fight replays on SHO Extreme:

Showtime will also be re-airing the two semifinal fights from the tournament on December 15 and December 17. At 10 p.m. EST/PST on December 15, Froch vs Johnson and Ward vs Abraham will air back-to-back. The same will happen on the 17th, at 2 p.m. EST/PST.