Gary Russell Jr returns October 24 for first title defense

Gary Russell Jr will return to action on October 24, making the first defense of the WBC featherweight title he won from Jhonny Gonzalez on March 28. Russell will be fighting on Showtime, with no opponent named yet.

Russell (26-1, 15 KO) has come back into the good graces of boxing fans, it seems, thanks to the dominant win over Gonzalez, a fourth round stoppage where the Mexican veteran was dropped three times. That followed Russell's 2014 loss to Vasyl Lomachenko, where the general belief was that Russell had been "exposed" against another quality fighter for the first time.

As with most knee-jerk reactions by boxing fans and media (BLH included, obviously), the truth is that Gary Russell wasn't exposed by Lomachenko, he was beaten by a better fighter that night, and he didn't suddenly become a top fighter by beating Gonzalez, who was probably a little overrated going into that fight, but then it's a whole other argument about "oh, now Gonzalez was overrated!" All I'm saying is Russell's a good fighter, Gonzalez is a good fighter, Lomachenko is a good fighter, and people lose if they fight other good fighters, and it doesn't mean they suddenly suck.

None of this really has anything to do with Russell's October 24 fight, but we need a minimum word count on these posts so that they reach Google News, and without Russell having a named opponent, there wasn't much else to say.