Boxing News Roundup (May 2, 2019): Joshua-Ruiz finally official, Canelo-Jacobs updates, more

Miss anything on Wednesday? Here’s your chance to catch up.

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The Anthony Joshua sweepstakes are finally over, and Andy Ruiz Jr is 100 percent official as his June 1 opponent at Madison Square Garden. Ruiz, big underdog, says he’s coming to take the WBO belt. He seems less concerned about the WBA and IBF belts.

It’s Canelo-Jacobs fight week. We had the main event press conference today. Today’s updates on Canelo-Jacobs:

• Lewis Watson took a look at Canelo continuing to build his legacy with this fight.
• The press conference was the usual dull affair, but we managed to squeeze a couple decent quotes out of it. The show ran almost an hour late before the dragged-out, standard speak from everyone, including Richard Sturm and his hair.
• The WBC have made yet another novelty trinket for a fight.
• Being very familiar with both men, trainer Abel Sanchez has made his prediction for the fight.

On Thursday, we’ll be here with a live stream and coverage for the undercard press conference, which begins at 2 pm ET. We’re also going to have live coverage of a streamed card from Las Vegas starting at 7 pm ET, featuring Yamaguchi Falcao vs Christopher Pearson in the main event.

Quick Hits

Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images

• Hey there are other fights this week, and in particular one on Saturday. Actually, two on Saturday on ESPN. Actually, several, with the prelims on ESPN+. But anyway, we previewed Artur Beterbiev vs Radivoje Kalajdzic and Jerwin Ancajas vs Ryuichi Funai. Kalajdzic is the underdog, but believes he can exploit Beterbiev and pull the upset. A big crowd is expected for the show, which can be credited to 19-year-old Gabriel Flores Jr.
• Tyson Fury is determined to not underestimate Tom Schwarz and make the same mistake Wladimir Klitschko made against underdog Fury in 2015.
• Anthony Crolla compares being KO’d by Vasiliy Lomachenko to being tasered.
• Jarrett Hurd fights Julian Williams on May 11, but has his eye on the WBC title and a go at being undisputed champion at 154.
• We actually got a bunch of fight announcements/confirmations today besides Joshua-Ruiz. Demetrius Andrade vs Maciej Sulecki is finally set for June 29 on DAZN, with Andrade defending his WBO middleweight title.
• Frank Warren announced junior middleweight prospect JJ Metcalf against Jason Welborn for the Warrington-Galahad show on June 15, which will stream on ESPN+. The fight will be for the vacant Commonwealth title. We’ll also see Ohara Davies vs Miguel Vazquez on June 28 from York Hall on ESPN+.
• Golden Boy DAZN Thursday Night Fights has its May 16 show pretty much in place, with lightweights Romero Duno and Juan Rodriguez meeting in the main event. This is the series that isn’t actually on DAZN. It airs on regional sports networks (often not live), and streams live on RingTV.com and Facebook. Duno-Rodriguez should be a fun fight.
• MTK Global announced a few other fights coming soon, all of which will be on ESPN+ shows. Lightweight prospect Gary Cully (8-0, 4 KO) will face Renald Garrido (24-22-3, 6 KO) and welterweight Paddy Gallagher (15-5, 9 KO) will face Liam Wells (5-0, 2 KO) on June 21 in Belfast. Wells is a former champion kickboxer. Junior welterweight Sean McComb (6-0, 3 KO) will face Miroslav Serban (10-2, 5 KO) on May 17’s Ryan Burnett comeback card, also in Belfast.
• Anselmo “Chemito” Moreno, who held a bantamweight title from 2008-14 and also challenged for a super bantamweight title in 2012, returned to the ring on Tuesday in Panama City after just under a two-year layoff. Moreno was 1-4 in his last five fights before the comeback, but returned with a UD-8 win over Daniel Colula. NotiFight has more.