The boxing TV week gets started early. I do want to note that I will be out of town this coming weekend on a four-day vacation (Friday to Monday), but we will have live coverage of the HBO show on Saturday, as I'm taking a short break from the vacation to do the normal round-by-round and post-fight analysis that night.
Wednesday, August 31
Main Event PPV (Australia) ($39.95-49.95) / Premier Sports (U.K.), 5 a.m. EDT, Daniel Geale vs Eromosele Albert, Serge Yannick vs Jamie Pittman, Joel Brunker vs Reynaldo Belandres. Geale (25-1, 15 KO) is coming home to Tasmania for a victory lap first defense of his IBF middleweight title against "hard-hitting American bad boy" Eromosele Albert (24-4-1, 12 KO). Albert, 37, is not particularly hard-hitting, and it really isn't much of a competitive matchup. The undercard has Yannick (13-1, 6 KO) defending the PABA super middleweight title against Pittman (21-2, 8 KO). You may remember Pittman, 30, as one of Felix Sturm's weak opponents. Brunker (19-0, 13 KO) is a 25-year-old featherweight facing Filipino Belandres (14-2-2, 9 KO). Belandres gave Billy Dib some trouble until getting knocked out in the sixth round in April 2010.
TBS (Japan), 6 a.m. EDT, Koki Kameda vs Daniel de la Mora, Hugo Cazares vs Tomonobu Shimizu. Kameda (25-1, 16 KO) puts his WBA bantamweight title on the line against Mexico's untested Daniel de la Mora (23-0, 16 KO) in what is something of a mystery fight. On paper, Kameda is the easy favorite, as he's a top ten fighter in a good division. But you never really know what to expect of a guy like de la Mora until he gets in there at this level. This is a huge step up for the 23-year-old, though, as his best opponent to date has been Jovanny Soto. The co-feature has some promise, as top-ranked super flyweight Cazares (35-6-2, 25 KO) has a habit of making for good action fights no matter who he's in against, and Shimizu (18-3-1, 9 KO) is a former Japanese flyweight champ. Two of his losses have been to Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, who battered him in 2007, and Daiki Kameda, who knocked him out in 2008. Bad Left Hook will have live coverage of this event.
Friday, September 2
TyC Sports (Argentina), 9:30 p.m. EDT, Luis Lazarte vs Nerys Espinoza II. Lazarte (48-10-2, 18 KO) is coming off of a pair of ungodly horrible fights with Ulises Solis, and if he beats Espinoza (29-6-1, 20 KO), he'll be right back in line to make for the trilogy nobody wants, sort of a junior flyweight version of Holyfield vs Ruiz. Espinoza's last fight was a loss -- to Lazarte in September 2010.
Telefutura, 11:30 p.m. EDT, Eloy Perez vs Daniel Jimenez. Perez (21-0-2, 5 KO) is a familiar face for those who watch a lot of the Golden Boy shows, and he has a habit of making fights harder than they seem like they should be. He's been facing solid if not spectacular competition, and that will continue against Jimenez (20-3-1, 12 KO), a 30-year-old Puerto Rican who has won three straight since dropping two in a row to Roman Martinez and Jesus Chavez.
Saturday, September 3
Sky Sports 1 (U.K.), 3 p.m. EDT, Jamie McDonnell vs Stuart Hall. McDonnell (17-2-1, 7 KO) is defending his European and Commonwealth titles, while Hall (11-0-1, 7 KO) is defending the British title. To recap: McDonnell beat Ian Napa for the British title in January 2010, then gave that up and won the vacant European belt against Jerome Arnould two months later in France. He successfully defended the European title twice, against Rodrigo Bracco and Stephane Jamoye, and then won the Commonwealth belt against Nick Otieno in May, which was an odd move. Meanwhile, Hall picked up the vacant, McDonnell-abandoned British title in June 2010 when he also beat Ian Napa, and he's defended against Martin Power, Gary Davies, and John Donnelly. Bad Left Hook will have live coverage of this event.
TV2 (Denmark), 3:40 p.m. EDT, Rudy Markussen vs Michael Recloux, Patrick Nielsen vs Farouk Daku. Showcase program for a couple of Danish fighters, as 34-year-old super middleweight Markussen (35-2, 22 KO) takes on Recloux (19-11-2, 8 KO), a 27-year-old Belgian middleweight. 20-year-old southpaw middleweight Nielsen (10-0, 6 KO) faces 26-year-old Ugandan Daku (12-1, 7 KO), who is now based in the Netherlands. Also in action on this card: Kim Poulsen (18-1, 5 KO) and Kasper Bruun (11-0, 3 KO). None of the Danes are likely to become world players.
TV Azteca (Mexico) / Fox Deportes (U.S.), 10 p.m. EDT, Omar Chavez vs Alberto Martinez, Jorge Paez Jr vs Rodrigo Juarez. Fear not, those who mourned the loss of the sensational Julio Cesar Chavez Jr vs Ronald Hearns bout on September 17. There's still time for a lackluster son of Julio Cesar Chavez to face the lackluster son of another former fighter. If Omar Chavez (26-0-1, 19 KO) and Jorge Paez Jr (28-4-1, 17 KO) win their fights here, as they should, they're supposedly going to be matched up later. I'll believe it when I see it. Paez, 23, defeated Jose Luis Castillo in March, which should tell you how far Castillo has fallen, and then followed that up with a loss to Jose Lopez (11-0-1, 5 KO), which should give you no indication of Lopez's quality at all.
HBO, 10 p.m. EDT, Mayweather vs Ortiz 24/7. Episode two of the series. How can they follow the Mayweather family implosion from last week? Perhaps by asking Temo more about his trucks.
Televisa (Mexico), 10 p.m. EDT, Marco Antonio Rubio vs Mohammed Akrong, Michel Rosales vs Julio Cesar Garcia. Here's ranked middleweight Rubio (51-5-1, 44 KO) once again picking on the inferior, this time facing Akrong (13-3, 10 KO), which is about as good as Rubio's last win over Ricardo Marcelo Ramallo. I'd feel more for Rubio's plight, but these fights he's taking are hard to respect. Rosales was once going to fight Joshua Clottey, but Clottey was all, "No way, I am a big star and this is not enough money."
Televisa (Mexico), 10 p.m. EDT, Humberto Soto vs Jose Alfaro. Split-site broadcast from Televisa, as Soto (55-7-2, 32 KO) moves to junior welterweight against Alfaro (25-7, 22 KO). Alfaro has been training with former foe Erik Morales in Mexico, and Morales is of course the man Soto says he wants, but Soto has said he's wanted a lot of fights in the past, so who knows?
HBO (U.S.) / Premier Sports (U.K.), 10:30 p.m. EDT, Jan Zaveck vs Andre Berto, Gary Russell Jr vs Leonilo Miranda. We'll have more on this fight in the coming days, including a full preview on the podcast and hopefully some staff picks on Friday or Saturday, depending on my internet availability and all that. Zaveck (31-1, 18 KO) is a solid opponent for Berto (27-1, 20 KO) and will be among his two best victories if in fact Berto gets past him and picks up the IBF belt, as most expect he will. The co-feature is the HBO debut of Gary Russell Jr (17-0, 10 KO), a 23-year-old featherweight prospect who has the sort of talent that can wow viewers. Miranda (32-3, 30 KO) hasn't beaten anyone as good as Russell, but he's got power and he's a southpaw. Bad Left Hook will have live coverage of this event.