A second fight was confirmed for a yet-to-be-announced summertime Showtime boxing event.

BoxingScene.com has learned that a lightweight bout between Edwin De Los Santos and Joseph Adorno will land on the Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis-Roiman Villa card due to take place on July 8. The bout will air as part of a Showtime tripleheader from Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

The bout will mark a return to the lightweight division for Adorno (17-2-2, 14KOs), whose four career blemishes have come in his last seven starts. The 24-year-old Puerto Rican boxer from Allentown, Pennsylvania saw two knockdowns serve as the difference on the cards in an ultimate majority decision defeat to Elvis Rodriguez over ten rounds on a February 25 Showtime telecast from The Armory in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Adorno has fought two other times on the premium cable network. He previously suffered a ten-round defeat to Michel Rivera last March 26 in a battle of unbeaten lightweights which aiso took place in Minneapolis. Adorno then won three straight, including a narrow unanimous decision over unbeaten Hugo Roldan atop a ShoBox card last September 9 from Bally’s Event Center in Atlantic City.

De Los Santos (15-1, 14KOs) has not fought since the biggest win of his career, an off-the-canvas, third-round knockout of unbeaten Jose Valenzuela. Their September 4 Fox Sports Pay-Per-View co-feature saw De Los Santos—a lean knockout punching southpaw from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic—accept the fight on less than one week’s notice and survive a knockdown to score two of his own before earning the dramatic stoppage win.

The feat marked a wild 2022 campaign for De Los Santos, who began the year with an eight-round split decision defeat to William Foster III last January. He rebounded with a second-round knockout of unbeaten Luis Acosta just two months later before the sensational win over Valenzuela.

It was argued that De Los Santos may have proven too dangerous in the win. His lack of ring activity is attributed in part to an inability to get his lightweight peers in the ring. De Los Santos has called out undefeated former two-division titlist Shakur Stevenson (20-0, 10KOs) and rising contender Frank Martin (17-0, 12KOs), though his cries fell on deaf ears until Adorno accepted the fight.

De Los Santos will likely be favored, though Adorno claims regional advantage with his Allentown hometown barely two hours away. 

The main event will see Philadelphia’s Ennis (30-0, 27KOs) attempt the first defense of the interim IBF welterweight title he won in a twelve-round, unanimous decision over Karen Chukhadzhian on January 7 in Washington D.C. The same show saw Venezuela’s Villa (26-1, 24KOs) drop and outpoint Rashidi Ellis over twelve rounds in an upset win. Both fights aired in supporting capacity on a Showtime Pay-Per-View event headlined by Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis.

Ennis’s interim title symbolizes his status as the IBF mandatory challenger. The main titleholder is Errol Spence Jr. (28-0, 22KOs), who puts his WBA, WBC and IBF titles at stake versus WBO titleholder Terence Crawford (39-0, 30KOs) for the undisputed championship atop a July 29 Showtime PPV from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox