By Jake Donovan

It’s been 11 years since a prize fight has appeared live before the cameras in Music City. That drought comes to an end this Friday night, when Fernando Beltran Jr and Takalani Ndluvo throw down in a 12-round featherweight bout that serves as the main event of ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights, live from the Sommet Center in Nashville, TN (9PM ET/8PM local time).

Undefeated junior middleweights Harry Joe Yorgey and Jason LeHoullier collide in the co-feature, with the show presented by Banner Promotions.

The two televised bouts are evenly matched on more levels than just competitiveness. Both fights feature opponents with similar records, common opponents and all in need of a win if they are to remain – or even become – relevant in their respective divisions.

Beltran Jr (30-3-1, 18KO) enters this weekend’s main event coming off of a 12-round loss to current unbeaten super bantamweight titlist Steve Molitor. The fight snapped a five-fight unbeaten streak for the Mexican southpaw, though it’s two of his three career losses that have best – if unfairly – defined his career.

The first test of Beltran’s career also came in his stateside debut, when he challenged for an alphabet title held by Joan Guzman in their April 2005 super bantamweight bout. Both fighters were undefeated at the time (Beltran 24-0-1, Guzman 22-0), but only Guzman would leave that way, jumping out to an early lead and holding off a late rally by Beltran to take a well-earned unanimous decision in their TV Azteca-televised bout in Hidalgo, Texas.

Friday night will mark Beltran’s 10th bout since that night, having went 6-1 (1 No Contest) prior to challenging Molitor earlier this year, when he wound up on the wrong end of a virtual shutout in Ontario, Canada.

Ndlovu (28-4, 18KO) is also a casualty among Molitor’s present title reign, in fact serving as the Canadian’s first title defense last July, also in Canada. The bout resulted in the first stoppage loss in the career of the South African, as he was dropped three times before being rescued midway through the ninth round of their scheduled twelve.

The loss was a bit of poetic justice, as Ndlovu was lucky to have emerged victorious in the bout that earned him the title shot.

Seven months prior, he took a highly controversial split decision over Ricardo Castillo in Cicero, IL. The majority of onlookers for the bout, both in attendance and watching at home on Telefutura, had Castillo, the younger brother of former lightweight king Jose Luis, winning the bout with room to spare.

Oddly enough, Castillo still received a title shot before Ndlovu, just against another opponent – Celestino Caballero, succumbing in the ninth round of yet another Telefutura headliner. Ndlovu fell to Molitor in as many rounds, but had to wait four months longer than Castillo before receiving a title shot.

The loss was Ndlovu’s first since 2004, when he suffered a second defeat in as many tries against countryman and former super bantamweight king Vuyani Bungu. The six-fight win-streak he carried into the Molitor fight was the second longest successful run of his career, having once won 16 straight prior to running into Bungu.

He enters this weekend fight on a win streak of one, scoring a fourth-round knockout over previously unbeaten Raymond Sermona this past April in his native South Africa.

Friday night will mark Ndlovu’s fifth fight in the United States.

All of Harry Joe Yorgey’s fights have taken place in the states, but none beyond the general Philadelphia area. Nor have any of his 21 pro fights to date taken place in 2008.

The dynamic for both of those statements changes Friday evening, when he meets Jason LeHoullier in a 10-round co-feature with a regional title at stake.

The two fighters are practically mirror images of one another on paper.

Yorgey’s record is 20-0-1 (9KO), stands 5’10”, is 30 years old and turned pro in 2002.

LeHoullier’s record is 21-0-1 (8KO), stands 5’9”, is also 30 years old and turned pro in 2001.  

The two even beat the same fighter for their most recent win, both fighters taking decisions over serviceable journeyman Martinus Clay. LeHoullier only needed one try to turn the trick, scoring an eight-round win over Clay in March 2007, just four months after Yorgey was held to a draw before enjoying better success in the rematch ten months later.

LeHoullier’s only had one fight since Clay day, coming 51-weeks later as he was held to a ten-round draw against Jose Luis Gonzalez this past March.

It was a performance LeHoullier will gladly get back – and he has Yorgey to blame.

The March date was originally reserved for this very matchup, only Yorgey was forced to the sidelines for that night and much of 2008 after becoming embroiled in a legal battle with manager Jimmy Deoria.

The dispute was over Yorgey signing with Banner Promotions without his manager’s consent, a story that was surrounded by Boxingscene.com’s Editor-In-Chief Rick Reeno earlier in the year. A compromised was finally reached in the form of a mid-June arbitration ruling in favor of Yorgey, with the stipulation that the fighter was still obligated to pay 15% of his purse for any fight not negotiated by his manager.

All in all, Yorgey lost ten months to inactivity while awaiting the sordid mess to play out. It almost became a longer period, when the Bridgeport (PA) native was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence last month.

But through the police blotters, legal battles and site relocations, Yorgey is finally ready to resume his career.

The matchup is intriguing in both directions as it represents the toughest test to date for either fighter. LeHoullier’s March ’08 draw with Gonzalez is the closest the Portland (ME)-based boxer has come to a formidable test, while Yorgey’s fighting heart is somewhat overshadowed by a terribly thin resume.

The same can be said for the city of Nashville, which hasn’t exactly been a boxing hotbed. So sparse is the boxing scene that the state had to outsource in order to have a commission oversee the event.

A spring ruling in favor of bringing Mixed Martial Arts to the Volunteer State resulted in a major shakeup among what was once classified its Boxing and Racing Commission.  While a new committee is formed, the Louisiana State Athletic Commission makes the 8 ½ hour trek to ensure that things go off without a hitch.

LOCAL TALENT(?)

While the main event and co-feature are solid, the rest of the card is typically Tennessee thin once you get past the opening bout of the evening.

A pair of former Contender contestants appear, with Season One entrants Jonathan Reid and Brent Cooper both fighting in-state for the first time in over five years.

All five non-televised bouts feature fighters from Tennessee, though Reid is the only local fighter who’s not only matched tough, but in a fight where he’s not even favored to win. The Lavergne product squares off against unbeaten 6’3” super middleweight Maxim Vlasov (12-0, 4KO), who fights for Banner Promotions.

The irony in Reid being aggressively matched is that of all of the local fighters on the card, he’s the most in need of a win, having lost six straight and nine of his last ten since enlisting with The Contender in 2004. Reid was once upon a time 33-1 (19KO), with his lone pre-Contender loss coming in a last-minute failed title bid against William Joppy eight years ago.

The rest of the bouts are the same level of mismatches that have all but crippled the Mid-South boxing scene.

Brent Cooper, whose spent most of his career hovering around 154 and 160, takes on upside down journeyman Tyrone Wiggins (8-22) of Covington, TN in a welterweight bout. Cooper weighed 145 ½ for the fight, while Wiggins checked in at 143 ½.

A pair of in-state pro debuters square off in a junior middleweight battle as Nashville’s Yolexei Leiva (154 ½) meets Covington’s Davian Jones (160).

Ft. Campbell (KY)-based heavyweight Samuel Brown returns to the town that housed his pro debut, as he faces 12-21 cruiserweight Marvin Hunt. Brown was about 30 minutes late to the weigh-in, but at least had the decency to stay dressed in T-shirt and sweats in taking to the scales, where he came in at 243 lb. He enjoys a 53 lb. advantage over the 190 lb. Hunt.

The lone matchup that saw drama at the scales came in a welterweight swing bout. Donnell Logan, the slightly younger brother of well-traveled journeyman Marteze, had no problem with the contracted weight of 147 (+/-1 lb), coming in at a shredded 146 lb.

It turned out to be 4 ½ lb lighter than his opponent, Antioch’s Luis Galarza, who at 150 ½ was 2 ½ lb over the tolerable limit. Galarza questioned the commission over the validity and accuracy of the digital scales, insisting that he had repeatedly checked his weight prior to the official weigh-in. A fact apparently lost on the welterweight clubfighter was that he was the only one in the room who struggled at the scales, with nobody else finding fault in their officially recorded weight.

IF YOU BUILD IT… WILL NASHVILLE STILL CARE?

No official word was given regarding ticket sales, though for what it’s worth, a mass e-mail was distributed earlier in the week, informing all members on the mailing list for professional hockey team Nashville Predators (who play their home games at the Sommet Center, though not for much longer) that complimentary tickets were being given away for a limited time.

Even in the event of a poor turnout, it can’t be said that Philly-based promoter Artie Pellulo didn’t do his job. The show was well-advertised, with spots running on local sports and music stations for the past month. Local crews for NBC-4 and Fox-17 were on hand for the weigh-in, as were a bevy of local sports photographers, a rare moment for any news outlet in town when it comes to boxing.

Jake Donovan is a voting member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Contact Jake at JakeNDaBox@gmail.com .