Tonight at 9 p.m. EST, the first edition of the new NBC Sports Fight Night series goes live with a triple-header led by a very promising co-feature and a makeshift main event featuring a pair of Philadelphia heavyweight prospects.
Bad Left Hook will have live, round-by-round coverage of the show tonight. Here's how you can watch. For those curious, NBC Sports Network is just the old Versus network, so wherever Versus was on your cable or satellite, that's where NBC Sports is now.
After the jump, info on how to watch.
Fight time: 9:00 p.m. EST
Location: ECW Arena - Philadelphia, PA
TV channel: NBC Sports (United States)
Main Event: Bryant Jennings vs Maurice Byarm, heavyweights, 10 rounds.
Undercard: Gabriel Rosado vs Jesus Soto Karass, junior middleweights, 10 rounds. Sullivan Barrera vs Damar Singleton, light heavyweights, 6 rounds.
Odds: The only fight with listed odds is the 154-pound co-feature, where Rosado has odds of -230 and -175, with Soto Karass at +170 and +145.
The commentary crew tonight is veteran broadcaster Kenny Rice, paired with Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach and cruiserweight fringe contender BJ Flores. For those who aren't fans of Flores the fighter, I can say he's a better and more interesting commentator than he is a fighter, even counting that time he and Robert Flores made a mess of one of those ESPN airings of a Klitschko fight, which did lead Flores to let those of us at the site know that he can get any woman he wants. This was an interesting development to say the least.
Hopefully tonight's card runs smoothly and goes over well. They really need Jennings and Byarm to deliver in this main event, and honestly I don't know why they didn't just bump Rosado and Soto Karass to the main event, and let the show end on likely an exciting note. Rosado is also a Philly fighter and that bout could be really good. If this was a call by NBC Sports, if they thought a heavyweight fight between a pair of total unknowns was a more suitable main event than a pair of exciting junior middleweights because they're heavyweights, well, it's overall fairly harmless but still a misreading. Actually applies to whoever the shot-caller on that decision was, be it NBC or Russell Peltz or Kathy Duva. Rosado vs Soto Karass is the best fight and should be the main event.
But it's just a quibble. Jennings and Byarm can make this an irrelevant complaint with a good fight.