It will be a battle between Brazil and Argentina, but it won’t take place on a football pitch.
Patrick Teixeira (31-1, 22 KOs) will defend his WBO super welterweight title versus Brian Castano (16-0-1, 12 KOs) on April 25 at the Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, Calif. in a main event fight that will stream on DAZN, a source informed of the imminent announcement told BoxingScene.com
Former light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (34-4-1 29 KOs) will take on Sullivan Barrera (22-3, 14 KOs) in the main event of the Golden Boy promoted showcase.
Mike Coppinger of The Athletic was first to report that a deal was done Tuesday.
In November, the Brazilian brawler Teixeira claimed the interim WBO title with a unanimous decision victory against Dominican contender Carlos Adames (18-1, 14 KOs) in Las Vegas. By February, he’d re-signed a promotional deal with Golden Boy.
The 29-year-old southpaw calls Santa Catarina his home, and he made his pro debut in 2011 and went on to win his first 26 fights before losing his lone career fight to Curtis Stevens via TKO in 2016.
The 30-year-old Castano, from Buenos Aires, is coming off a solid 2019 in which he earned a stoppage win over Wale Omotoso after fighting to a draw with Erislandy Lara before that.
Kovalev, meanwhile, will be fighting for the first time since Canelo Alvarez crushed him with an 11th round KO in November. Barerra lost in January to Jesse Hart.
Golden Boy currently has options on Kovalev, a Main Event fighter, following his loss to Alvarez, and it will be a fight promoted by De La Hoya and company.
Top Rank also has had options with Kovalev and exercised that muscle leading up to the Alvarez fight, seizing a sizable $2 million fee from Kovalev promoter Kathy Duva, which finally allowed for Kovalev to fight on DAZN.
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist and member of the Boxing Writers Assn. of America since 2011. He has written for the likes of the LA Times, Guardian, USA Today, Philadelphia Inquirer, Men’s Health and NFL.com and currently does TV commentary for combat sports programming that airs on Fox Sports and hosts his own radio show in Los Angeles. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan or via email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com.