Boxing News Roundup (June 6, 2019): Weekend previews, Hooker-Ramirez, more

Miss anything on Wednesday? Catch up!

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We’ve got previews for all of this weekend’s main events: Gennadiy Golovkin vs Steve Rolls on DAZN on Saturday, Oscar Valdez vs Jason Sanchez on ESPN on Saturday, and Zab Judah vs Cletus Seldin on FITE on Friday.

The biggest news story of the day came from the 140-pound division, where Maurice Hooker and Jose Ramirez are officially set to unify titles on July 27, live on DAZN. It’s a fantastic fight to add to the schedule, and maybe the most encouraging news attached is that Ramirez, a Top Rank fighter, will face Hooker on DAZN in exchange for ESPN/Top Rank getting Vasiliy Lomachenko against Luke Campbell, a Matchroom fighter, later this year. This whole new broadcast/streaming era is very complicated, but if promoters are willing to work together like this for the right fights and come up with deals that make sense for everyone, it can help fans greatly, and it’s good for everyone.

Quick Hits

Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images

• Gennadiy Golovkin and Steve Rolls met up in New York for their final presser ahead of Saturday’s fight. Golovkin says he’s absolutely not looking past Rolls, as he doesn’t seek to add his name to the list of upset victims we’ve seen lately.
• Anthony Joshua talks about his loss to Andy Ruiz Jr, and unless you’re legitimately a “hater,” which is not a word I throw around much, you gotta like the way he’s taking it, at least publicly. His team triggering the immediate rematch for later this year says a lot, too. As others have noted, this all might be a real win for DAZN in the end. Whether they’ve stumbled ass backwards into it or not, they’ve got a big fight in Ruiz-Joshua 2, which is going to be bigger than any fight Joshua realistically could have landed in 2019 otherwise.
• Krzysztof Glowacki has been elevated to full WBO cruiserweight titleholder, which is a fair call, as Oleksandr Usyk isn’t coming back to the division and Glowacki was the interim titleholder. Glowacki faces Mairis Briedis with the vacant WBC title also on the line on June 15 on DAZN.
• Prospects Chris Colbert, Jesus Ramos, and Joey Spencer will be part of FOX’s June 23 show in Las Vegas. Colbert and Ramos will be on the prelims, while Spencer gets a main card showcase slot.
• Ted Cheeseman will defend his British 154-pound title against Kieron Conway on June 21, which will air on DAZN.
• MTK Global announced a couple new fights: Martin Murray will face Kim Poulsen on July 12 in Liverpool, and Neslan Machado will take on Alexander Mejia on July 20. Both fights will air on ESPN+ cards.
• Salita Promotions have signed cruiserweight Constantin Bejenaru, which will end his inactive spell, as the fighter from Moldova has been dealing with promotional issues.
• Former welterweight titleholder Randall Bailey, now 44 and one of the most dangerous one-punch guys in recent boxing history, will make his bare knuckle debut at BKFC 6 on June 22 in Florida, on the Malignaggi-Lobov card. We’ll have live coverage of that show, as a reminder, because there’s nothing going on in boxing that night other than a CBS Sports Network show, and frankly there are going to be a lot of people out there interested in what happens with Malignaggi-Lobov who don’t want to pay for the show, so it’s best for business. I’m all about