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Friday, January 27
ESPN2 / ESPN3, 9 p.m. EST, Ruslan Provodnikov vs David Torres, Ji Hoon Kim vs Yakubu Amidu. This week's edition of Friday Night Fights features a pair of all-action Banner Promotions guys who have paired together on the series before in Provodnikov and Kim. Provodnikov was originally suppoesd to face Julio Diaz and Kim originally had a better fight lined up, but it unsurprisingly fell through.
Provodnikov (20-1, 13 KO) may be more interesting than it appears on paper here, as he's taking this fight despite suffering a cut that originally figured to cancel his date here. The cut was suffered in a closer-than-scored December 5 win over DeMarcus Corley in Russia. Torres (21-2-2, 13 KO) has a nice-looking record but is 1-2-2 in his last five and was stopped by both Julio Diaz and Raymundo Beltran in the losses. He's 0-2-1 in his last three, drawing with washed-up versions of Santos Pakau and Michael Stewart. The co-feature has Kim (22-7, 18 KO) back in action against Amidu (20-2-1, 18 KO). South Korea's Kim has a right hand and literally nothing else going for him. Amidu got onto last season's Friday Night Fights season finale, beating Martin Tucker via TKO-3 in a swing bout. His losses have come to Ricky Burns and Ali Funeka.
Provodnikov has been training with Freddie Roach at the Wild Card Gym, but Roach won't be in Provodnikov's corner for this fight. Bad Left Hook will have live, round-by-round coverage.
Saturday, January 28
Sky Sports 1 (U.K.), 4 p.m. EST, Carl Frampton vs Kris Hughes. Belfast's Frampton (11-0, 7 KO) is an exciting, flawed, action fighter defending the Commonwealth super bantamweight belt against Scotland's punchless Hughes (15-1, 1 KO), whose lone loss came to Jamie Arthur. Frampton is pretty much always worth watching. Bad Left Hook will have live, round-by-round coverage.
Sport 1 (Germany), 4 p.m. EST, Juergen Braehmer vs Jose Maria Guerrero, Rakhim Chakhkiev vs Alexander Kotolbay, Denis Boytsov vs Darnell Wilson. Along with these three fights, the card has Rafael Bejaran vs Daniel Urbanski (middleweights, 12); Firat Arslan vs Orlando Farias (cruiserweights, 10); Vitali Tajbert vs Jose Luis Graterol (super featherweights, 8); and top women's boxer Ina Menzer (27-1, 10 KO) taking a serious challenge against Milena Koleva (3-3-1, 0 KO).
GFL ($9.99), 7:30 p.m. EST, Brian Minto vs Tony Grano. This is a full card from start to finish, every fight will be broadcast. Minto (35-4, 22 KO) hasn't fought since October 2010, when he beat Pierre Karam in two rounds. That ended his cruiserweight experiment, I guess, but he's been in the ring for entertaining if totally one-sided loss to both Marco Huck and Chris Arreola. Grano (18-2-1, 14 KO) isn't very good, but then neither is Minto. The appeal here is both come to swing.
TyC Sports (Argentina), 8:00 p.m. EST, Carolina Gutierrez vs Maria Miranda.
TV Azteca (Mexico), 9:30 p.m. EST, Shantall Martinez vs Jackie Nava. Probably the best fight of the weekend. Martinez (15-4, 6 KO) is defending her WBA super bantamweight belt against Nava (25-4-3, 11 KO). Nava, of course, had two legitimate Fight of the Year contenders in '11 against Ana Maria Torres.
Televisa (Mexico), 10 p.m. EST, Alejandro Sanabria vs Balweg Bangoyan, Marco Reyes vs Isaac Mendez. Sanabria (30-1-1, 23 KO) is on a nice little run, with wins over Rocky Juarez, Vinvin Rufino, Pedro Navarrete, and Alejandro Barrera. Bangoyan (17-4, 7 KO) is probably best known as a TKO-5 loser to Toshiaki Nishioka in 2010.