Showtime will have a busy boxing weekend on April 18 and 19, with Bernard Hopkins returning to face Beibut Shumenov in a light heavyweight title unification main event on Saturday the 19th, headlining a Golden Boy triple-header with three world title bouts, and now an April 18 ShoBox card is set, promoted by Mike Tyson's Iron Mike Productions.
In the 10-round lightweight main event, Alexei Collado (18-0, 16 KO) will face Rod Salka (18-3, 3 KO). Collado, 26, is a heavy-handed Cuban who turned pro in 2008, and wasn't one of the long-term products of the Cuban amateur system. Salka, 31, is a Pittsburgh area club fighter who will have home field advantage in Monroeville, Penn., for the fight. You may have seen him get robbed in favor of Canelo Alvarez's brother Ricardo on Showtime back in December.
The other two bouts will both be welterweight fights, each set for 10 rounds. In the broadcast's opening fight, Sammy Vasquez Jr (13-0, 9 KO) will face Juan Rodriguez Jr (11-0, 5 KO), and in the second bout of the show, Felix Diaz (14-0, 8 KO) will take on Emmanuel Lartey (15-1-1, 7 KO)."Iron Mike Productions is fairly young but is a quickly growing company that has expeditiously risen to the achievement of world-class competition," said Mike Tyson.
"I'm looking forward to continuing our rise to prominence in the field of championship boxing. I was the first fighter to bring Showtime to the apex of its prominence and it is great to have my company start off where I finished. April 18, on ShoBox, coming live from the Monroeville Convention Center in Monroeville, Pa., is going to be a spectacular night."
Tickets are on sale at eventbrite.com, priced from $35 to $250 for VIP ringside seats, which includes a meet and greet with Tyson.