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Friday, November 27
Sky, 4:30 p.m. Eastern, Anthony Small vs. Thomas McDonagh. Small will be defending the BBBoC and Commonwealth junior middleweight titles he won against Matthew Hall earlier in the year. Bad Left Hook will be providing live round by round coverage.
TyC (Argentina), 10:00 Eastern, Carlos Baldomir vs. Jairo Jesus Siris. The former welterweight champion is back in action for the first time in a year, facing a light touch.
Saturday, November 28
ITV4, 2:30 p.m. Eastern, Darren Barker vs. Wayne Elcock. This one's for the BBBoC middleweight title. Bad Left Hook will be providing live round by round coverage.
HBO, 10:00 p.m. Eastern, Lucian Bute vs. Librado Andrade, Joan Guzman vs. Ali Funeka. Bad Left Hook will be providing live round by round coverage of this one. Note to our friends in Canada - it will be blacked out on HBO in favor of a pay per view that is available only in Quebec.
Showtime, 11:00 p.m. Eastern, John Molina vs. Martin Honorio, Rico Ramos vs. Alejandro Perez. Molina and Ramos are Goosen Tutor fighters who have been fed a steady diet of cans on Shobox cards for a while now. Molina will be taking a major step up against recent title challenger Honorio.
Sunday, November 29
TBS (Japan), 5:58 a.m. Eastern, Daisuke Naito vs. Koki Kameda. This fight is between one of Japan's more beloved sports figures and one of its more loathed ones, so don't be surprised to hear that this fight breaks all kinds of records over there. There are tons of great storylines. Naito already defeated Kameda's younger brother, Daiki, in a foul-fest where Koki and their father/trainer egged Daiki on to intentionally foul Naito over and over. Koki is no longer trained by his father, and he's humbled a bit, but he's very well known as a shockingly brash athlete who's not afraid to flout tradition and common sense in order to get ahead. Naito was a long-time journeyman who persevered and eventually made his way to the top, winning the title by defeating the very same fighter who embarrassed him with the fastest knockout in title fight history. The Japanese eat that type of story up. Billed as "The Battle of Destiny", it's pretty easy to view this one as a battle of good against evil.
Bad Left Hook will try like hell to provide live round by round coverage of Naito-Kameda.
Elsewhere in the world of boxing...
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Rafal Jackiewicz will square off against Delvin Rodriguez in Lodz, Poland for the IBF's mandatory position. Rodriguez is already 0-1-1 against the current titlist, Isaac Hlathswayo, although most reports had Rodriguez winning the first encounter. Jackiewicz has been on a heck of a run lately and has become sort of a Polish Carlos Baldomir. Despite a mediocre record, the combined record of his opponents in his last three fights was 78-1-1, including wins over Sugar Jackson Bonsu and Jan Zaveck. Krzyzstof Wlodarczyk will also stay busy on the undercard. Officially, he's Zsolt Erdei's mandatory, if Erdei decides not to vacate his shiny new cruiserweight title.
- In Thailand, 32-0 minimumweight titlist Oleydong Sithsamerchai may be facing his toughest competition yet. He'll defend against Juan Palacios, the interim titleholder who has recent wins over Omar Soto and Erik Ramirez. In Mexico, another undefeated minimumweight titlist, Raul Garcia, will be defending against rugged but now shop worn Lorenzo Trejo.
- On the Bute-Andrade undercard, Interbox and Golden Boy have brought out some of their better prospects. For GBP, Craig McEwan will take on 12-0 James Parison, and Hector Sanchez (the 6'1" junior welterweight who was lucky to escape with a win over Chop Chop Corley in his last fight) will take on 9-2-2 Cleotis Pendarvis. Interbox will be showcasing Pier Olivier Cote, one of Canada's hopes for the lighter weights, and Kevin Bizier, who's at least exciting if not talented.
- Two different cards with decent main events going on this Friday in Australia, which seems like a big screw up on the part of the promoters. Local attractions Les Sherrington and Shannan Taylor will face off in a battle of tough guys. More interesting to me, Oyewale Omotoso will try for a welterweight regional belt against Hwan-Young Park. Omotoso has some bad habits (like forgetting to move his head for long stretches and pulling straight back), but he has the raw tools to be a very good fighter. His last time out, he became the first person to physically knock out Emmanuel Augustus (his previous TKOs were either stoppages or, uh, miscalculations on Augustus's part).
- The WBA is having its quarterly card where they give away random belts to Panamanians. This time, Luis Concepcion will defend his interim flyweight title against Roberto Carlos Leyva, while Ricardo Nunez, Luis RIos and Rafael Hernandez all get to face scrubs for regional titles.