Magdaleno, Kavaliauskas, Gvozdyk To Return on July 16, UniMas

By Steve Kim

Top Rank will be promoting a card at the Pioneer Events Center in Lancaster, Calfornia that will be a part of their UniMas 'Solo Boxeo' series on July 16th. Super bantamweight Jessie Magdanelo, who may be fighting WBO champion Nonito Donaire in the fall, will headline the card.

"Jessie Magdaleno is facing Justin Savi,"said Top Rank matchmaker, Brad Goodman, of that night's main event.

Also on this card are pair of highly regarded prospects, welterweight Egis Kavaliauskas (13-0, 11 KO's) and light heavyweight Oleksandr Gvozdyk (10-0, 8 KO's) and Goodman tells Boxingscene.com that it's becoming increasingly difficult to find opponents for this duo.

"Very, very hard, nobody here in the States will fight them, unless you get guys from West Virginia who are just in it for the paydays. I'm going now to Europe and South America,"explained Goodman, who had to match Kavaliauskas with Denis Ilbay from Germany in his last fought on April 9th.

Both boxers are managed by Egis Klimas - best known for handling the careers of Sergey Kovalev and Vasyl Lomachenko - who wants them on the fast track.

"Gvozdyk, I know Egis' radar is about twelve fights and be ready for a title. That's how confident they are,"said Goodman, who matched Gvozdyk with former title challenger Nadjib Mohemmedi in his last outing. 'the Nail' needed just two rounds to get rid of Mohemmedi.

"With Kavaliauskas it may take a little bit longer just because we have to see him go some more rounds. With Gvozdyk you can't see it because he's such a great puncher."

Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.