Kurt Scoby will headline Boxing Insider Promotions’ next show.
The streaking knockout artist will top a September 19 show from Sony Hall in New York City. An opponent has yet to be finalized for Scoby.
Boxing Insider founder and show promoter Larry Goldberg informed BoxingScene that Johnson, 12-7 (8 KOs) has agreed to the fight. The proposed eight-round matchup awaits approval from the New York State Athletic Commission before it can be formally announced.
Scoby, 17-1 (15 KOs), will return to New York for the first time since his June 2023 second-round knockout of former title challenger Henry “Hank” Lundy, also on a Boxing Insider show from this very location.
The 30-year-old lightweight from Duate, California has since suffered his first defeat - a sixth-round stoppage to Dakota Linger in a major upset last April. However, he quickly rebounded to rack up four consecutive knockouts, including a sixth-round stoppage of Haskell Rhodes on June 13 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Scoby is promoted by DiBella Entertainment and OTX Boxing and is trained by Hector Bermudez out of Springfield, Massachusetts.
In the co-feature, popular local heavyweight Josh Popper, 4-0 (4 KOs), will face MMA and bareknuckle veteran Braxton Smith of Leander, Texas.
Popper, a Manhattan resident originally from Somers Point, New Jersey, and a former New York amateur champion, is the owner of nearby Bredwinners Boxing. The event marks his first fight in New York.
Also slated for action:
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An all-New York heavyweight bout between George Arias, 18-1-1 (7 KOs), of The Bronx and Brooklyn’s Earl Newman, 10-4-1 (7 KOs);
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Multiple time national amateur champion Donte Layne, 7-0 (6 KOs), of Elmont, New York faces Mirady Lubanzadio Zola, 5-3-1 (2 KOs), of Canal Winchester, Ohio in a six-round super middleweight bout.
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Nadim Salloum, 13-2 (7 KOs), the first professional boxer from Lebanon, against against Andres Martinez, 5-4 (3 KOs), in a six-round super middleweight bout;
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Harlem's Armando Barbier, 2-0 (1 KO), faces Ricardo Jimenez, 0-2-1, of Yonkers, New York in a four round junior welterweight fight.
The show, which is Boxing Insider’s 12th at Sony Hall in Times Square, will be the company’s first as part of the revived “Broadway Boxing” series. The event will air via tape delay on SNY (SportsNet New York), which aired Broadway Boxing for 18 years.
Ryan Songalia is a reporter and editor for BoxingScene.com and has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler, The Guardian, Vice and The Ring magazine. He holds a master’s degree in Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at ryansongalia@gmail.com or on Twitter at @ryansongalia.
