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Featherweight Oscar Valdez (17-0, 15 KO's) is considered one of the sports brightest prospects and he concludes his 2015 campaign this Saturday night in Tuscon, Arizona at the Convention Center, where he co-headlines a 'Solo Boxeo' telecast on UniMas. By next year, this former two-time Mexican Olympian could be in line for a title shot.
Roman Martinez and Orlando Salido put on two very enteraining bouts in 2015. On April 11th, Martinez took Salido's WBO 130-pound title in Puerto Rico and then in their rematch on September 12th on the Floyd Mayweather-Andre Berto undercard in Las Vegas, they fought to a draw. In 24 rounds it was shown that their styles were made for one another.
It's been almost one year since Matt Korobov was in the ring. It was on December 13th, 2014 in Las Vegas that he was leading on all three scorecards against Andy Lee after five rounds before he was stopped in the sixth. That fight was for the vacant WBO middleweight title. Since then he's been dormant.
WBO junior welterweight beltholder Terence Crawford has been prominently mentioned as Manny Pacquiao's next foe. But there is strong speculation that WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley will land that assignment in April. So where does that leave Omaha's favorite son?
Despite his massive amateur credentials and his status as world champion, Vasyl Lomachenko, still has yet to gain a foothold in terms of having a real fan-base witness his talents. Promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank hopes that the reigning WBO featherweight titlist can piggyback a bit off the box-office success of Jose Ramirez.
Top Rank had been doing their best to keep heavyweight prospect Andy Ruiz (26-0, 17 KO's) as active as possible in recent months after going through a significant weight loss in 2015. 'The Destroyer' fought on September 26th, defeating Joell Godfrey over eight rounds and then on October 24th when he out-pointed Raphael Zumbrano Love in eight. He was scheduled to go against this past weekend in Fresno, California but that fight was nixed.
Boxingscene.com has been advised that a January 22nd edition of 'ShoBox' is being planned that will feature young middleweight prospect Rob Brant, who made his debut on Showtime on October 23rd by defeating Louis Rose over ten rounds.
On Thursday Jake Donovan talked about Vyachaslev Glazkov's decision to bypass an opportunity to face WBC heavyweight belt-holder, Deontay Wilder, and instead take a crack at the IBF title (where he is the mandatory challenger). It was believed that Glazkov had signed onto face Wilder weeks ago for a January 16th bout at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn, New York. Kathy Duva, the head of Main Events - who promotes Glazkov - explained:
WBC lightweight titlist Jorge Linares (40-3, 27KOs) is looking forward to an impactful 2016, after defeating the likes of Kevin Mitchell and Ivan Cano earlier this year. "We just got the notification that the mandatory is due, we're looking into that,"said Robert Diaz, Golden Boy Promotions matchmaker, who works closely with the Venezuelan stylist.
There has been a lot of talk regarding a possible welterweight showdown between Keith Thurman (who holds the WBA 'regular' title) and former IBF beltholder Shawn Porter - two of the more talented boxers under the Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) umbrella of Al Haymon. But as of yet, no date has been set for that match-up. Kenny Porter who trains and manages his son, Shawn, told BoxingScene.com: