Golovkin vs Derevyanchenko, more: Boxing fight times and TV schedule for Oct. 4-5

Friday, Oct. 4

ESPN+, 3:00 pm ET, MTK Golden Contract Tournament. This is the quarterfinals at featherweight, which is probably the best of these three tournaments. Participants will be Ryan Walsh, Leigh Wood, Hairon Socarras, Jazza Dickens, Davey Oliver Joyce, Tyrone McCullagh, Carlos Ramos, and Carlos Araujo. BLH will have live coverage.

Saturday, Oct. 5

DAZN, 7:00 pm ET, Gennadiy Golovkin vs Sergiy Derevyanchenko. The undercard will feature Ivan Baranchyk vs Gabriel “Tito” Bracero, plus prospects Israil Madrimov, Ali Akhmedov, Brian Ceballo, Nikita Ababiy, and the debuting Joseph Ward. European middleweight champ Kamil Szeremeta will also be in action, possibly setting up a fight with the main event winner. GGG-Derevyanchenko is a real good main event, a couple of top five or so middleweights for the vacant IBF belt, with Golovkin going after career win No. 40. BLH will have live coverage.

SHO, 9:00 pm ET, Claressa Shields vs Ivana Habazin, Jaron Ennis vs Demian Daniel Fernandez, Jermaine Franklin vs Pavel Sour. This is a Showtime Boxing Special Edition, which means when the numbers come back they’ll be prepared to ShoBox, which relatively speaking nobody watches, and not Showtime Championship Boxing. Which is fair, I suppose, it honestly is somewhere between a ShoBox and a Championship Boxing. Anyway, the thing that sucks is that this is going head-to-head with Golovkin and, well, that means our coverage will be lighter than it normally would be for Showtime. But there will be a live thread and we’ll have a recap. Shields is going for a world title in a third division, moving down again to 154. Ennis is a fantastic prospect at 147. And Franklin is trying for a third time to impress on SHO. BLH will have live coverage.