Lara vs Castano: Showtime to stream preliminary bouts on undercard

Showtime Sports will be extending its coverage of this Saturday’s card from Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, streaming a trio of fights from the undercard before the main card tripleheader goes live on Showtime.

The prelim stream on YouTube and Facebook Live will start at 6:30 pm ET, with the main card, headlined by Erislandy Lara vs Brian Castano, starting at 9 pm ET.

In a 10-round cruiserweight fight, veteran Edwin Rodriguez (30-2, 20 KO) will take on Mitch Williams (16-6-3, 11 KO). Rodriguez, 33, is still best-known for his 2013 fight with Andre Ward, where he failed to make weight for a super middleweight title shot. He followed that with four straight wins, then was stopped in the second round of a wild slugfest against Thomas Williams Jr in 2016. He’s won two straight since then, but hasn’t fought in a year.

Williams, 36, is a club fighter from Jackson, Michigan, mostly building up his record on small fight cards in the midwest. He notably lost to Ismayl Sillah and Olanrewaju Durodola in 2013. More recently, he went abroad, dropping fights to Ryad Merhy in Belgium and Arsen Goulamirian in France in 2017. (Those two later fought each other, with Goulamirian stopping Merhy in 2018.)

We’ll also see Antonio Russell (12-0, 10 KO) take on Jose Maria Cardenas (16-3, 13 KO) in an eight-round bantamweight fight. Russell, 26, is the younger brother of WBC featherweight titleholder Gary Russell Jr. He’s looked good as a pro thus far, but hasn’t really been tested. Cardenas, 22, is coming off of a 10-round decision loss to unbeaten Melvin Lopez last August.

In another fight set for eight rounds, Cuba’s Leduan Barthelemy (13-0-1, 7 KO) returns to face Miguel Angel Aispuro (11-6-2, 7 KO) at super featherweight. Barthelemy, 29 and the younger brother of Yan and Rances Barthelemy, was once thought to be a rising contender in the featherweight division. But he hasn’t fought since a Sept. 2017 draw with Eduardo Ramirez, who faces Bryan De Gracia later in the night on the main card. Aispuro, 28, has won three straight over bad opponents following a 2017 knockout loss to Devin Haney.