Wednesday, April 7
Showtime, 10:00 p.m. Eastern, Fight Camp 360. This episode will go behind the Dirrell-Abraham fight (including footage of Dirrell in the hospital) and look ahead to the Froch-Kessler fight.
Thursday, April 8
Fox Sports 3 (Australia), 5:30 a.m. Eastern, Jamie Pittman vs. Joseph Kwadjo, Michael Bolling vs. Victor Oganov. Pittman has been clawing his way back since a lopsided loss to Felix Sturm. The winner of the main event should jump near the top of the IBF's rankings. In addition, Billy Dib and Ranee Ganoy will be fighting on the undercard.
Friday, April 9
Eurosport (Germany), 3:00 p.m. Eastern, Konstantin Airich vs. Alexey Varakin, Juan Carlos Gomez vs. Alexander Kahl. This card also has about 15 other heavyweights on it, all in mismatches, but it's not worth mentioning. A bunch of these guys fought just two weeks ago on the Gamboa-Barros undercard, but since they're still in shape, they're coming back quickly.
www.boxing1.de, 4:00 p.m. Eastern (4.99 Euro), Jan Zaveck vs. Rodolfo Ezequiel Martinez. The IBF welterweight paper title has been taken to a new low. Zaveck is a very weak titleholder to begin with, and as his first voluntary defense, he was somehow allowed to get away with this fight. At least Zaveck will probably get one home defense on this internet card with no undercard. Martinez is 36-3, but his record is pretty awful for someone who's getting a title shot. He recently lost to Edvan Dos Santos Barros, who is 2-7 in his last 9 fights with losses to guys like Keith Thurman and Alexis Camacho.
Canal+ Sport (Poland), 4:15 Eastern, Piotr Wilczewski vs. Azziz Daari. In his only step up, Wilczewski was knocked out by Curtis Stevens, which probably tells you all you need to know about his title prospects.
Sky Sports (UK), 5:00 P.M. Eastern, Audley Harrison vs. Michael Sprott, Darren Barker vs. Affif Belghecham. Both of these are fights for the European title. Harrison won his shot at the Euro title by winning the most recent heavyweight Prizefighter tournament. He was supposed to face Albert Sosnowski, but Sosnowski vacated and moved on once he got the shot to fight Vitali Klitschko. Instead we get a rematch of Harrison-Sprott. Three years ago, Sprott knocked out Harrison, but since then he's gone 2-4 in some pretty unwatchable fights. The 21-0 Barker made three defenses of his Lonsdale Belt and is moving up the old fashioned way. Belghecham is a former Euro titlist, but lost recently to Andy Lee in a bout that was non-title only because the fighters missed weight.
TyC Sports (Argentina), 8:00 p.m. Eastern, Mauricio Javier Munoz vs. Miguel Leonardo Caceras. There will also be a women's title fight on this card.
Saturday, April 10
ESPN2, 8:30 p.m. Eastern, Orlando Lora vs. David Estrada, Victor Fonseca vs. Andre Wilson. Lora may be an undefeated fighter at 26-0, but he's 29 years old and has been a pro since 2003. Estrada is actually a big step up for him. Why ESPN has its card on Saturday this week, up against some heavy hitters, when nothing is going on in the US on Friday night, who the hell knows.
Integrated PPV, Gofightlive.tv, 9:00 p.m. Eastern ($9.95), Evander Holyfield vs. Francois Botha. This fight has already been postponed twice before, but we're finally at the week of the fight, and the show appears to still be on. At this point, no undercard has been named, so for the price of admission, expect to see the main event and not much more. This is a strong contender to outduel Hopkins-Jones II for worst fight of the year.
FSN / Fox Sports Espanol, 10:00 p.m. Eastern, Lamont Peterson vs. Damian Fuller, Mark Jason Melligan vs. Norberto Gonzalez. Peterson will try to bounce back from his first loss to Timothy Bradley against Fuller, a lightweight who has been KOed by some light hitters. Evidently, Top Rank will continue to force feed us Melligan fights as he becomes the Pinoy welterweight Tye Fields.
HBO, 10:00 p.m. Eastern, Mayweather-Mosley 24/7.
Televisa (Mexico), 10:00 p.m. Eastern, Antonio Lozada Jr. vs. Henry Aurad, David de la Mora vs. Jovanny Soto, Arturo Badillo vs. Ronald Barrera. All three of the lead fighters here are undefeated Mexican prospects who are getting shots at vacant regional titles.
HBO, Sky Sports (UK), 10:30 p.m. Eastern, Andre Berto vs. Carlos Quintana, Celestino Caballero vs. Daud Yordan, Guillermo Rigondeaux vs. Reynaldo Lopez. While it's a step down from the aborted Berto-Mosley fight, Quintana is still a strong test for Berto. Quintana isn't all that dissimilar from Luis Collazo, so we'll see if Berto makes the same mistakes again or if he's learned from that fight. Caballero-Yordan is also intriguing. Yordan more than held his own for a couple of rounds against Robert Guerrero, but that's all we've seen from him. Pound for pound entrant Caballero will be making his featherweight debut, and if he comes through unscathed, he may be facing Yuriorkis Gamboa next. Rigondeaux will be fighting on the UK televised card (which starts an hour earlier), but will be off-TV in the U.S. Bad Left Hook will be providing live round by round coverage of this fight.
Televisa (Mexico), 12:00 a.m. Eastern, Cristian Mijares vs. Francisco Arce. Yes, this is back to back cards on the same channel. After three consecutive losses to Vic Darchinyan and Nehomar Cermeno (who has turned out to be a better fighter than people originally realized), Mijares came back with a couple of light touches, but this one should give people a better idea of whether Mijares has really lost it, or if he just hit a stretch of bad matchups. Panchito is no worldbeater, but he's a solid fringe contender.
Elsewhere in the world of boxing...
- In Paris on Friday, Simphiwe Nongqayi will make the first defense of his super flyweight title against Frenchman and European champ Malik Bouziane. Thus is the life of a South African titlist - his first title defense, and he gets to fight off television in his opponent's backyard. This isn't even being aired in France. The winner will have to face Juan Alberto Rosas.
- At the Tachi Palace Casino near Fresno, California, Goosen Tutor is holding a small card on Thursday. Manuel Quezada, who absurdly is ranked in the top 10 by the WBC, will face journeyman Jason Gavern. Mike Dallas Jr. is likely to fight on the card as well.
- Soulemayne M'Baye and Antonin Decarie were supposed to face off this weekend for a worthless interim welterweight title, but the fight is off for now because Decarie's team never finalized the business side of the deal. Sounds like a case of looking a gift horse in the mouth.
- Staying busy in smaller fights this weekend: Gavin Rees, Michael Lomax, Jose Benavides Jr., Antwone Smith, Yudel Jhonson, Jo Jo Dan, Reyes Sanchez and Christian Esquivel.