By Francisco Salazar
Unbeaten super featherweight Alexei Collado will fight Rod Salka in a likely 10 round bout on April 18th, Gordon Hall told Boxingscene.com on Tuesday afternoon.
Hall is the Showtime Vice President of Production and the Executive Producer of ShoBox.
The bout will be the main event of a three-bout ShoBox telecast that will take place from the Convention Center in Monroeville, which is located outside of Pittsburgh, PA.
The bout will headline an Iron Mike Productions card.
Collado (18-0, 16 KOs) is originally from Havana, Cuba, but made his professional debut in Cork, Ireland, where he now resides after defecting from Cuba.
The hard-hitting Collado won an eight round unanimous decision over Edgar Riovalle in his last bout on February 22nd in Bethlehem, PA.
Salka (18-3, 3 KOs), who hails from nearby Bunola, is coming off a 10 round majority decision against Ricardo Alvarez on December 14th in San Antonio, TX. A majority of media thought Salka did enough to win the fight.
Prior to the loss to Alvarez, Salka had won three bouts in a row.
Also on the card will be unbeaten welterweight and 2008 Gold Medalist Felix Diaz (14-0, 8 KOs). He will likely fight in a scheduled 10 round bout against a fighter to be determined.
Boxingscene.com’s Jake Donovan first broke the story Diaz was fighting on April 18th.
The Dominican-born fighter now trains in Oxnard, CA with trainer Robert Garcia. In his last bout on August 17th, Diaz knocked out Edgar Llanes in the first round in Isla Verde, Puerto Rico.
Rounding out the telecast is unbeaten super welterweight Sammy Vazquez (13-0, 9 KOs). Vazquez, who resides in nearby Monessen, is an Army veteran who served two tour of duty in Iraq.
In his last bout on February 22nd, Vazquez stopped Berlin Abreu in the fourth round in Bethlehem, PA.
Francisco A. Salazar has written for Boxingscene.com since September of 2012 and has covered boxing in Southern California and abroad since 2000. He also covers boxing for the Ventura County (CA) newspaper, RingTV, and Knockout Nation. He can be reached by email at santio89@yahoo.com or on Twitter at FSalazarBoxing