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by David P. Greisman - Fear not, the drought will soon break.
Sept. 29, Atlantic City: Jermain Taylor defends his middleweight championship on HBO against Kelly Pavlik. On the undercard, welterweight prospect Andre Berto faces his most difficult test yet in David Estrada.
That same night, in Sacramento, Calif., Chad Dawson will seek to retain his light heavyweight title against mandatory challenger Adrian Diaconu. The card, which airs on Showtime, will lead off with a bantamweight title bout between Luis Alberto Perez and Joseph Agbeko.
By the time that evening arrives, boxing fans will have gone eight weeks since the last night of competing cards: Aug. 4, when Israel Vazquez stopped Rafael Marquez in a sensational rematch of their March junior featherweight slugfest, while elsewhere Erik Morales made a valiant attempt at winning a fourth world title but ultimately came up short against lightweight David Diaz.
Since then, the Saturday offerings have been few and far between: Aug. 11, when Daniel Ponce De Leon demolished Rey Bautista and Gerry Penalosa scored a body shot knockout of Jhonny Gonzalez, and Sept. 1, the night Fulgencio Zuniga derailed hyped super middleweight prospect Victor Oganov.
It didn’t help that this month turned into what my fellow BoxingScene scribe Jake Donovan aptly nicknamed “Dark September.”
Three straight weeks, three straight postponements and cancellations: Fernando Vargas’ Sept. 8 slugfest against Ricardo Mayorga was delayed when Vargas was diagnosed with anemia. The Sept. 15 pay-per-view featuring Juan Manuel Marquez-Rocky Juarez was postponed after Marquez came down with an infected cut on his right hand. And this Saturday’s scheduled heavyweight bout between Vitali Klitschko and Jameel McCline was called off when Klitschko suffered an injury that required spinal surgery.
Thankfully – and hopefully – the worst is behind us.
October leads off with Manny Pacquiao’s long-anticipated rematch with Marco Antonio Barrera and Oleg Maskaev’s heavyweight title defense against Samuel Peter. The following week, Juan Diaz and Julio Diaz will meet in a lightweight unification bout and Evander Holyfield will challenge both Father Time and heavyweight beltholder Sultan Ibragimov. [details]
Sept. 29, Atlantic City: Jermain Taylor defends his middleweight championship on HBO against Kelly Pavlik. On the undercard, welterweight prospect Andre Berto faces his most difficult test yet in David Estrada.
That same night, in Sacramento, Calif., Chad Dawson will seek to retain his light heavyweight title against mandatory challenger Adrian Diaconu. The card, which airs on Showtime, will lead off with a bantamweight title bout between Luis Alberto Perez and Joseph Agbeko.
By the time that evening arrives, boxing fans will have gone eight weeks since the last night of competing cards: Aug. 4, when Israel Vazquez stopped Rafael Marquez in a sensational rematch of their March junior featherweight slugfest, while elsewhere Erik Morales made a valiant attempt at winning a fourth world title but ultimately came up short against lightweight David Diaz.
Since then, the Saturday offerings have been few and far between: Aug. 11, when Daniel Ponce De Leon demolished Rey Bautista and Gerry Penalosa scored a body shot knockout of Jhonny Gonzalez, and Sept. 1, the night Fulgencio Zuniga derailed hyped super middleweight prospect Victor Oganov.
It didn’t help that this month turned into what my fellow BoxingScene scribe Jake Donovan aptly nicknamed “Dark September.”
Three straight weeks, three straight postponements and cancellations: Fernando Vargas’ Sept. 8 slugfest against Ricardo Mayorga was delayed when Vargas was diagnosed with anemia. The Sept. 15 pay-per-view featuring Juan Manuel Marquez-Rocky Juarez was postponed after Marquez came down with an infected cut on his right hand. And this Saturday’s scheduled heavyweight bout between Vitali Klitschko and Jameel McCline was called off when Klitschko suffered an injury that required spinal surgery.
Thankfully – and hopefully – the worst is behind us.
October leads off with Manny Pacquiao’s long-anticipated rematch with Marco Antonio Barrera and Oleg Maskaev’s heavyweight title defense against Samuel Peter. The following week, Juan Diaz and Julio Diaz will meet in a lightweight unification bout and Evander Holyfield will challenge both Father Time and heavyweight beltholder Sultan Ibragimov. [details]
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