Thursday, March 15
TV Max (Panama), 9:00 p.m. EDT, Luis Concepcion vs Oscar Gallardo. Concepcion (23-3, 18 KO) fights for the first time since his TKO-1 rematch loss to Hernan "Tyson" Marquez in October, looking for a get-well win and trying to get himself going in the WBC rankings. Concepcion, 26, will face Gallardo (12-3-1, 5 KO) for the WBC Latino flyweight title in a 12-round main event. There are also plenty of other fights on this card. TV Max usually has their fights streaming legally online, so we'll have a live link (probably live video) up on Thursday night.
Friday, March 16
ESPN2 / ESPN3.com, 9:00 p.m. EDT, Kendall Holt vs Tim Coleman, Abraham Lopez vs Gabriel Tolmajyan. Finally, a Friday Night Fights worth looking forward to. Not only is the main event actually going to keep the winner relevant in his division, but it should even be a pretty good fight (knock on wood). This has been a miserable season for the most part, with almost no fights that stood out by the time the next Friday rolled around, and too many gimme matchups. But this is about the best you can hope for from this series. Lopez vs Tolmajyan could be decent, too -- Lopez (16-0, 12 KO) is a legit prospect at featherweight. Bad Left Hook will have round-by-round coverage.
Showtime, 11:00 p.m. EDT, Omar Figueroa vs Ramon Ayala, Randy Caballero vs Jose Luis Araiza. I pretty much said all I can say about this one when we talked about the fights last week: These are showcases for Figueroa and Caballero, a couple of Golden Boy kids, as the ShoBox brand name continues to be devalued and the series more and more becomes Friday Night Fights Part II. Bad Left Hook will have round-by-round coverage.
Telemundo, 11:35 p.m. EDT, Glenn Donaire vs Omar Salado. Donaire (18-4-1, 10 KO) returned in December after a three-and-a-half year retirement, and beat the snot out of Alex Sanchez on Telemundo, so he's back, making a final little run at the sport. The 32-year-old older brother of Nonito has had world title shots at 108 and 112 (losing to Ulises Solis and Vic Darchinyan, respectively, but not in that order), and now appears to be settling in at 115, as this will be for the vacant WBC Latino super flyweight title. Salado (23-4-2, 14 KO) once went to a draw with the aforementioned Solis, but since then he pretty much either beats someone who's barely a pro boxer or he gets stopped by someone who really is a pro boxer.
Saturday, March 17
Sky Sports (U.K.), 5:00 p.m. EDT, Kell Brook vs Matthew Hatton, Grzegorz Proksa vs Kerry Hope, Carl Frampton vs Prosper Ankrah. This is being designed, or at least I think it is, to be Brook's final step toward a world title. Hatton is a gritty competitor and a competent fighter, but even with the improvements he's made, he still doesn't have what you would call a "big win." He's a domestic level welterweight, really, European level at best, but he makes opponents earn wins and doesn't back down. Brook is the heavy favorite and should be; pure talent, he has it all over Hatton in every single department. He's simply a much better fighter. Proksa is defending his European middleweight belt against a guy who can't punch, and Frampton has wasted no time coming back less than two months after his last fight. He'll be facing Ghana's Prosper Anrkah, who has one of the lamest paper records you're going to find. Bad Left Hook will have round-by-round coverage.
HBO (U.S.) / Sky Sports (U.K.) / Televisa (Mexico), 10:00 p.m. EDT, Sergio Martinez vs Matthew Macklin, Edwin Rodriguez vs Don George. A nice double-header from HBO, with the legit middleweight championship on the line against the top contender (who will actually fight him), and what promises to be a pretty explosive matchup of super middleweight prospects. We'll have much more on this card in the coming days, but I'll just say I'm really looking forward to this one. Bad Left Hook will have round-by-round coverage.
TV Azteca (Mexico), 10:30 p.m. EDT, Omar Chavez vs Emilio Julio, Roman Gonzalez vs Manuel Jimenez. Hey, if you don't like Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, you should really check out little brother Omar, who is so much worse that judges couldn't even find an excusable way to give him a decision over another second-generation mediocrity, Jorge Paez Jr, in his last fight. The co-feature has Roman Gonzalez, the world's best junior flyweight, in a tune-up match. Gonzalez is supposedly going to face Ramon Garcia in April.
Televisa (Mexico), 11:00 p.m. EDT, Antonio DeMarco vs Miguel Roman. DeMarco makes the first defense of his WBC lightweight title, and this shouldn't be that tough for him. Roman is a respectable action fighter, but he's not really a lightweight and has a reputation for not always being in the greatest shape. If DeMarco doesn't totally overlook him, he shouldn't have any problems keeping his belt and moving on to a rematch with Jorge Linares.
Telefutura, 11:00 p.m. EDT, Raul Casarez vs Juan Carlos Candelo. This is also happening!