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The afternoon session for Olympic boxing in London goes live at 3:30 EDT this afternoon, with more from the lightweights and middleweights after an entertaining, interesting, and somewhat controversial morning set of fights.
[ Morning Results: Lighweights / Middleweights ]
You can watch live (close to anyway) on NBCOlympics.com, or wait for tape delay on CNBC at 5 p.m. EDT.
Top three fights/reasons to watch this afternoon:
1. (Lightweight) Josh Taylor (Great Britain) vs Domenico Valentino (Italy): Team Great Britain's last two wins have ignited some real controversy, with Anthony Ogogo upsetting top middleweight Ievgen Khyrtov, and Anthony Joshua winning a decision over Cuba's Erislandy Savon that it seemed almost nobody actually agreed with. Ogogo won on judges' decision, which is the tiebreaker if a countback score is even, though there were questions about whether or not it really was. Either way, Ogogo is going through. Joshua's win over Savon wasn't quite so complicated, just what the overwhelming majority felt was home cooking. Taylor beat Brazil's Robinson Conceicao in the opening round, and Conceicao felt that he was robbed, and said then that it would be hard for anyone to beat the British fighters due to bias in the judging. Now we have Taylor up against the favored, highly-regarded Valentino. This is one to watch for a multitude of reasons now. There is, like it or not, and maybe even fair or not, a growing consensus that the British fighters are being helped by the officials.
2. (Lightweight) Fazliddin Gaibnazarov (Uzbekistan) vs Jose Ramirez (United States): Ramirez is one of four American fighters remaining in the entire field, and could possibly be our best medal hope at this point. Gaibnazarov didn't really stand out against Cameroon's Yhyacinthe Mewoli Abdon in the round of 32, but Ramirez was in a barnburner with France's Rachid Azzedine, winning 21-20. Ramirez is considered a strong pro prospect, too.
3. (Middleweight) Terrell Gausha (United States) vs Vijender Singh (India): Gausha scored one of only two stoppage wins in the round of 32, cracking Armenia's Andranik Hakobyan in the third round. Singh was a bronze medalist in 2008 and is probably still India's best fighter. This one could be very, very interesting, and Gausha has legit power and fights with it, to boot. There's no pitty-pay point scoring with him. Coming into this afternoon, Team USA has lost five straight, and desperately needs to get off the schneid.
Full schedule is after the jump.
Lightweight (132 lbs/60kg)
3:30 p.m. - Josh Taylor (Great Britain) vs Domenico Valentino (Italy)
3:45 p.m. - Evaldas Petrauskas (Lithuania) vs Fatih Keles (Turkey)
4:00 p.m. - Fazliddin Gaibnazarov (Uzbekistan) vs Jose Ramirez (United States)
4:15 p.m. - Soonchul Han (South Korea) vs Vazgen Safaryants (Belarus)
Middleweight (165 lbs/75kg)
4:30 p.m. - Bogdan Juratoni (Romania) vs Abbos Atoev (Uzbekistan)
4:45 p.m. - Terrell Gausha (United States) vs Vijender Singh (India)
5:00 p.m. - Adem Kilicci (Turkey) vs Aleksandar Drenovak (Serbia)
5:15 p.m. - Abdelmalek Rahou (Algeria) vs Ryoto Murata (Japan)