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Friday, July 10
Sky Sports, 5 p.m. Eastern, Lee Haskins v Ross Burkinshaw
ESPN2, 10:00 p.m. eastern, Matt Godfrey vs. Shawn Hawk; Shaun George vs. Chris Henry. Two very solid fights on the same FNF card, although I have to say I find the George vs. Henry undercard to be more compelling. George and Henry are both on the fringes of the light heavyweight top 10. For those of you who like watching classic fights, Holyfield-Bowe I and II will be leading into the show.
Saturday, July 11
ZDF, 4:00 p.m. eastern, Felix Sturm vs. Khoren Gevor; Sebastian Zbik vs. Domenico Spada. I'd venture that Gevor is the best fighter Sturn has faced since de la Hoya, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Gevor wins, completely sinking any Pavlik-Sturm talks. Zbik-Spada is an eliminator to become one of Pavlik's mandatories.
Showtime, 9:00 p.m. eastern, Vic Darchinyan vs. Joseph "King Kong" Agbeko, Antonio DeMarco vs. Agnes Adjaho. We'll be providing round by round coverage of this fight that, on paper, looks like a FOTY candidate.
Mainevents.com, 10:00 p.m. eastern ($9.99), Tomasz Adamek vs. Bobby Gunn, Henry Crawford vs. Dennis "The Momma's Boy" Douglin, Piotr Wilczewski vs. Curtis Stevens. Main Events has really gone downhill as a promoter. At this point, it's pretty much just Adamek. They're trying to turn Crawford into a prospect, but he's still facing semi-bums 22 fights into his pro career, although Douglin has an awesome nickname. Wilczewski is also undefeated, but Stevens is a HUGE step up for him.
ESPN Deportes, TV Azteca, 10:00 p.m. Eastern, Cristobal Cruz vs. Jorge Solis; Eric Ortiz vs. Julio Miranda. Cruz is an entertaining fighter who became a beltholder and is much better than his record indicates. Still, Solis, who beat Cruz via wide decision in 2003, has to be the favorite in this one. Despite being a no-name fight at the time, Pacquiao's victory over Solis could still end up being a pretty solid win. Ortiz vs. Miranda is a flyweight eliminator.
Elsewhere in the world:
- In one of the all-time annoying television decisions, there's a real solid cruiserweight eliminator on the Darchinyan-Agbeko undercard, but it won't be televised. U.S.S. Steve Cunningham will square off against "Big Truck" Wayne Braithwaite. Cunningham should have risen to prominence after his fight of the year candidate against Tomasz Adamek, but Don King continues his mismanagement, and he's off TV. It's pretty sad that less than a year after Adamek-Cunningham, neither one can make it onto television. Romanov-Angulo was originally on the undercard as well, but that fight was moved to the beginning of August. It was just a waste to have too many good fights on the same card when half of them weren't being televised.
- Selcuk Aydin and his little tiny T-rex arms will try to beat slugger Sugar Jackson Bonsu. As I've mentioned before, it's pretty sad that this is a big fight in the welterweight division. Just not much depth at all in the weight class.
- Philip N'dou faces Lovemore N'Dou in a battle of N'Dous that Scott is pumped about. Phillip was retired for about 5 years after getting beat down by Floyd Mayweather, so we'll see how rusty he is. If he's anywhere close to what he used to be, he should blow out Lovemore, but Lovemore will at least make the fight exciting and try to bang.
- A number of big fights will be in Japan next Wednesday. Elio Rojas takes a crack at Takahiro Aoh's featherweight title. Hozumi Hasegawa will face off against solid contender Nestor Rocha in attempting his 10th title defense. Roman Gonzalez will tace off against Katsunari Takayama, who has a win over former titlist Isaac Bustos and close losses to titlists Eagle Kyowa and Yutaka Niida.
- Choi Tseveenpurev has his first fight since his big upset of Derry Matthews over a year ago. Since then, not only has he lost all his momentum, but Matthews has lost again so his win doesn't even look as good as it did at the time. He'll be facing Alfred Tetteh.
- Billy Dib is back in action tomorrow. I think they put him in Fight Night Round 4 just so people could have the satisfaction of beating the crap out of him. As bad as his fight against Luevano was, he's still only 23, and I have seen him in some more entertaining fights (in a defensive entertainment kind of way), so he may be back at some point.