August 14th Bumper Boxing Weekend Preview
Photo by Michael Owens/Getty Images
A monster weekend of boxing this time out, with four separate cards on Saturday that all deserve attention. We’ve got two big prospects getting tested, plus a trilogy grudge match and the return of Guillermo Rigondeaux against Jonriel Casimero in a match that, while not a trilogy, also seems to have got quite grudgy. We’ll go card-by-card, starting from the UK:
Joshua Buatsi vs. Ricards Bolotniks
One of the highlights of the Olympic class of 2016, where he won Bronze, Buatsi has spent the five years since rising up the pro ranks… but if we’re honest, maybe a little slower than might have been expected. He’ll need to start stepping up the levels soon if he wants that world title he’s been aiming for, but this weekend he’s fighting an opponent riding a wave. Bolotniks entered MTK’s light-heavy golden contract tournament at the end of 2019 without a great deal of fanfare, mostly expected to make up the numbers, but he ended it with a great deal of fanfare indeed, first smashing through Steven Ward in a round and then turning around what initially seemed to be technical disadvantages to ultimately unpick and defeat both Josea Burton and Serge Michel.
Buatsi is on paper a better opponent than any of those and certainly a different style matchup — unlike Burton and Michel he isn’t likely to box on the outside (though training with Virgil Hunter may increase the chances of that), which is good news for us watching as if they meet in the middle we could be in for a tear-up. At first glance, Buatsi is certainly the more polished boxer of the two, with some excellent instinctive accuracy used to throw classy combinations, but he’s tended to get a bit flat footed when delivering them, which in turns has left his head movement a bit lacking. This has led him both struggling with keeping his opponent at the right range, and with hitability — he looked downright awkward against Marko Calic, and although he was more dominant in his more recent fight against the undefeated but very inexperienced Daniel Blenda Dos Santos, the problems hadn’t gone away.
Bolotniks on the other hand comes in looking pretty basic — solid jab, static high guard that he shells up behind a lot, prone to bullrushing and occasionally lunging in. Both Burton and Michel discovered to their cost though that he has soldin ring-closing footwork and a sneaky knack for adjusting his rhythm, consistently able to jab his way in (particularly with work to the body) and breaking both fighters down, getting in more and more as the fight went on. The fact that his guard is so basic does give Buatsi an opportunity to take him out by finding the room with those targeted combinations early, but my feeling is the longer this goes on, the more chance of an upset.
Rest of the Card
The third and final week of this year’s Fight Camp is probably the weakest — still with some strong names but many in uncompetitive matchups (and some bigger names seem to have fallen off the schedule, presumably because satisfactory opponents could not be found). The highlight is probably Michael McKinson vs Przemysław Runowski, with both men looking to prove they can kick on to European level after McKinson’s slightly surprising win against Chris Kongo and Runowki’s loss to Josh Kelly. Beyond that you have American prospect Raymond Ford against British-level regular feature Reece Bellotti — in theory Ford should outbox him comfortably but the shallow context of his career to date makes it very hard to really know how good he is, so Bellotti may make him uncomfortable. Also featuring are the classy duo of Ukashi Farooq and Joe Cordina, both against opponents they should be beating comfortably, but hey, you never know. Farooq’s opponent, unheralded Mexican Luis Gerardo Castillo, is deaf-mute and communicates who’s fought to where he is with the help of a sign-language speaking team, so there’s a story there.
Vergil Ortiz Jr vs. Egidijus Kavaliauskas
This fight in some ways has similar dynamics to those of Buatsi-Bolotniks, though at a higher level. Ortiz is the rising star, the flash young gun with an exciting attack but a tendency to hold his feet and let his defence disappear. Kavaliauskas is the veteran, the fundamentally solid but perhaps slightly basic guy with some deceptive skills. In Kav’s case, what he does well is use his feet and manage range, using a combination of that and a nice adaptable guard to keep his opponents frustrated until he can draw them onto a shot or two. What does lessen the chances of an upset is that when in mid-range he can get himself a little out of shape, and we know Ortiz is an extremely damaging mid-range puncher. Where the Lithuanian’s best hope lies is in a hesitancy Ortiz has displayed to date at punching when he’s not in that favoured range of his. Essentially, he wants to back his opponents on to the ropes then stand just off and whip in his shots — if an opponent finds open space he tends to resort to a slightly reaching jab followed by single shots. If Kavaliauskas can stick and move consistently at that more uncomfortable edge of the younger man’s range, he may make him look awkward, though I do think ultimately Ortiz will find his body enough times to slow him down, break him up and pull out the win.
Rest of the card
This one is pretty stacked, with, in theory, two title fights providing support: a trilogy decider between Rene Alvarado and Roger Guitterez, whose close fight for the same WBA Super-feather strap last year resulted in victory for Guitierrez, and Rene’s twin brother Felix against Puerto Rican Israel Vasquez. Neither Alvarado is prone to fucking around, preferring just to throw down, so these should be fun. Worth noting that there’s some confusion about whether Felix’s is really a title fight — announcements and even this week press coverage have it as one, but Boxrec currently list it as a non-title ten-rounder, so we’ll see. Also worth noting that although Rene’s fight isn’t for the real WBA title, with the ‘Super’ belt held by Gervonta Davis, Tank hasn’t fought in this division for two years so it really should be for the real title. Whatever the status of both, though, they should be fun.
John Riel Casimero vs. Guillermo Rigondeaux
A clash of two very cocky boxing long-timers, this one’s got some personal spice to it as they seem to have wound each other up in what’s been a very long buildup. Rigondeaux is the amateur legend turned pro-great-that-never-was; Casimero is at 31 what you could call a young veteran, first fighting for a world title way back in 2011 at flyweight, losing to the very good Moruti Mthalane, before going on title runs at light-fly and back at fly (after avenging a loss to Amnat Ruengrong), and now being in the midst of another title reign, this time the WBO bantamweight title.
And don’t get me wrong, Casimero is good, and has an extremely solid resume against some top names in those divisions, but what this fight really is is a question of where Rigo is at. At anywhere near his best this wouldn’t have been competitive. Those days were a very long time ago now, but even last year against Liborio Solis he was able to defuse the Venezualan very effectively for most of the fight after a rocky round 1. Even that — his last fight — was a year and a half ago now, and Casimero is better than Solis- but often he gives the impression of being someone with a big bag of unorthodox skills but not much framework or gameplan, an opportunistic sniper whose response when not given a chance to snipe tends to be to follow his opponent around the ring, lunging from range.
That is, on paper, a very poor way to fight Rigondeaux, who will quite happily stifle a fight to glacial pace if his opponent won’t put himself out there, and whose timing and precision make him a fruitless opponent to lunge in against. If, however, his reflexes have dimmed to where he no longer can slide away it might prove to be a very good way to fight him, since Casimero’s unpredictable shot choices mean opponents do tend to rely on reflex rather than pattern to defend once in close range.
This, then, is a tough one to predict, but if Rigondeaux can pull out the win, it’ll be something very impressive from a man who’ll soon be turning 40.
Rest of the Card
An interim title fight as the main backup here, with Gary Antonio Russell looking to put himself in the world-level frame against Emmanuel Rodriguez, on the comeback trail after an expected loss to Naoya Inoue and an unexpected (and controversial — or let’s just say robbery) one to the Philippine prospect Reymart Gaballo. Russell has been somewhat written off as the least promising of the Boxing Gary Russells, but he’ll go some way to proving those doubters wrong if he wins here. Rodriguez is a classy outboxing operator though, so he won’t have it easy at all. Also on deck are the always game Rau’shee Warren fighting Damien Vasquez, and Showtime’s hope for a star Brandun Lee against Ezequiel Victor Fernandez.
Joshua Franco vs. Andrew Moloney
This superfly title clash sees the pair meet for the third time: Franco scored an upset win in the first by outboxing his more experienced opponent to a decision, the second ended in controversy when Moloney closed Franco’s eye with jabs in round 1, which led to a doctor’s stoppage but a call of no contest after referee Russel Mora imagined a headbutt to have done the damage, a decision bafflingly upheld by the commission after video replay.
So there’s a lot for both to prove in this one, with Moloney feeling robbed of the belt and Franco wanting to prove the first win wasn’t a one-off and that he can get himself into proper fighting shape, having claimed his poor form in the second was the result of partying too hard.
We’ll be hoping that both show up in shape — both are capable of being in real barn-burners, but both the first two were too one-sided to really be that. In truth they’re fairly similar fighters at their core, so what we’ll most likely is we see a battle of the jabs as both seek control of the space in front of them, and unleash mid-range combinations when they’re confident they have it (both men like a jab into a hook, so that will be a feature). The ideal result will be that this battle will be even and back-and-forth, leading to one stepping into space and the other firing off the combinations to fend them off. The unideal result is that the jabs cancel each other out and we see a stare-off, but purely on personality it’s hard to imagine either man accepting that state of affairs for long, most likely forcing the pace more if they feel they need to, so it should have action to entertain us with at the least.
Rest of the Card
The chief support is Andrew Moloney’s twin brother Jason, looking to recover from a devastating loss to the mighty Nayoa Inoue against Joshua Greer. This is something of a crossroads fight — Greer is also looking to recover from setbacks, having seen his rise up the rankings stopped by Mike Plania and then more embarrassingly unexpectedly drawing what was supposed to be an eight-round recovery fight against Edwin Rodriguez. Greer probably has more to lose here, Moloney has enough history that he could probably weather another loss whereas Greer losing would likely put paid to his world title prospects for good, but neither will want to find out. Also featured is Arnold Barboza Jr looking to preserve his unbeaten record against experienced Mexican Antonio Moran.
There we go then: a weekend not just full of cards but full of full ones, with title fights, divisional significance, or just plain old potential barn-burners all over the shop. Tune in and follow along as best you can; it’ll be worth it.