Boxing Weekend Preview: Adrien Broner, Prenice Brewer, Gabe Flores Jr,
Boxing in Pleasanton, Ca
Promoter Mike Bazan’s Squarevision Entertainment returns to one of the promotion trademark venues, the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton, CA, as Square Warriors super lightweight champion Luis “Vicious” Garcia of Richmond, Ca looks to avenge his draw against Jhonathan Zamudio in an eight-round title fight on April 21st.
The first bout saw Garcia get dropped by Zamudio with Garcia fighting back to earn a draw in the bout. Garcia has stated that at that point his career he wasn’t focused and wasn’t training like a pro athlete, he is now training with Kris “Lightning” Lopez at his gym in Oakland, CA and says things are much different.
Zamudio, who last fought Eddie Diaz to a draw in a brutal affair that saw Zamudio bleeding badly. The fight left Zamudio out of action for essentially a year and he is now looking to make a statement. Zamudio looked as good as he ever had in his last performance and is training at Hit Fit SF for this rivalry with regional title implications.
The co-main event will feature one of my favorite fighters I have ever seen train in person, welterweight Prenice Brewer of Cleveland, Ohio taking on Carlos Lozano. Brewer’s original opponent, Jay Krupp pulled out of the bout with an injury. Brewer is a highly decorated amateur, who has had setbacks in the professional ranks, but moved to the Bay Area a few years ago, this will be his debut fighting in the Bay Area.
Also featured is a four-man tournament, not unlike what the promotion did at super lightweight to determine Luis Garcia as their champion, but this time in the super welterweight division. Chris Washington of San Jose, Ca by way of Dreamland Boxing facing Anthony Hernandez in a battle of unbeaten. On the other half of the bracket, undefeated Ruben Torres will face game veteran and awkward match-up for all to deal with his long frame, Jared Ejigu.
Square Warriors cruiserweight division champion “Magic” Mike Russell of Petaluma, Ca will return to action against veteran Josh Fisher, Russell has yet to go past the first minute in his previous two fights, let alone past the first round.
LATV women’s boxer of the year Iris Contreras who trains with her father Filemon Contreras at the D.F. Boxing Club in Richmond, Ca, will face a game opponent in Rebecca Light. Contreras will be tested in this bout as she prefers to come forward and throw a lot of punches, but Light is very tough and will challenge her and potentially force her to have to fight off the backfoot in this bout. This is a very good and competitive bout.
Richmond, CA light heavyweight Jasper McCargo will return to action against Jose Galindo, super middleweight Tony Munoz will make his pro debut against Aaron Hamilton, cruiserweight Fernando Caro will face an opponent making his pro debut in Evan Gubera and, cruiserweight Ignacio Zambrano will face Davin Cook
Ticket information can be found at SquareWarriors.com
Gabe Flores Jr returns
17-year-old professional boxer Gabe Flores Jr. (6-0 5KOs) of Stockton, CA will return to action this weekend in a six-round bout against his against 29-year-old Cande Rochin (5-1 3KOs) at the Cox Pavilion, April 20th in Las Vegas.
This will be the first time Flores Jr. will be in with someone close to his age though Flores Jr has literally a hundred more amateur fights than Rochin.
The card is headlined by bantamweight prospect Max Ornelas against Juan Antonio Lopez.
Broner vs. Vargas
In the most interesting national fight of the week, the much mullioned welterweight Adrien “The Problem” will face Jessie Vargas in the main event of a Showtime card on Saturday, April 21st from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Broner, who has gone to Florida to train with Kevin Cunningham (Devon Alexander’s coach) and Gervonta Davis, and seems to be focused, while more so than prior fights in the past. Broner is a polarizing figure in boxing, constantly in trouble, constantly at the center of attention and someone the sport of boxing somewhat needs as he continues to draw large gates. Broner is coming off a shaky past two performance in which he was neutralized by future boxing legend Mikey Garcia as well a split decision to Adrian Granados, a fight that was too close for comfort those supporting Broner.
This seems like the barometer for where Broner goes next.
Jessie Vargas on the hand, left his former promoter Top Rank Inc., after losing to Manny Pacquiao. Vargas had a tune-up fight late last year and now is replacing Omar Figureoa Jr., who was pulled from the bout after a DUI months before this bout giving Vargas a full training camp. Vargas is a quintessential, hardworking boxer, who uses movement, angels, and a solid jab to keep opponents out of tune in the fight.
The big question in this fight is activity as both fighters have shown throughout their career to be very inactive and have low punch outputs. The winner of this bout will be the one who can throw more, as simple of a statement as that sounds, that’s what it comes down to as well as how well Vargas can handle Broner’s power.
This bout is contracted at a catchweight of 144 lbs.
Broner’s silly rap beef
Adrien Broner and Takashi69, a rapper that most people my age 30 & up don’t know one song of, have engaged in a social media “beef”. The two have been bickering on the popular social media platform Instagram with the rapper saying he’d bet $300,000 that Broner would lose his fight on Saturday night. Broner respond with more non-sense as sadly this story will probably overshadow the fight itself.
Charlo, Davis
Jermall Charlo will be fighting for the interim WBC middleweight title when he faces Hugo Centeno Jr. The bout is flying under the radar as Charlo is at the height of popularity as his personality has really shined in recent months. Charlo and Daniel Jacobs got into an argument at a Barclays Center event that had some wanting both fighters to forego their upcoming bouts to face one and another.
This will be Charlo’s first fight at middleweight against a dangerous contender as his first fight in the division saw him essentially a fighter with a serious knee injury. Centeno Jr is coming off the biggest win of his career when he brutally KO’ed Immanuwel Aleem, since Centeno Jr. has consistently underachieved in his career, people are counting him out, but he can do a lot of things in the ring including box and punch in between punches along with one punch KO power.
Super featherweight Gervonta Davis will look to become a two-time world as he faces former featherweight world champion Jesus Cuellar for the WBA super featherweight title. Davis, who was a former IBF super featherweight title holder didn’t lose his title in the ring, but rather the scale as the fighter had to give up his belt after missing weight.
Davis to my eye, is a once-in-a-generation type talent with a high boxing IQ combined with ferocious punching-power.
Cuellar is a talented Argentinan former world champion who is moving up a weight class for an opportunity. Cuellar also moved his camp to Legendz Boxing Gym with Manny Robles running his camp.
OFF TV UNDERCARD
Junior middleweight Immanuwel- Aleem saw the biggest KO win of his career as he stopped top DiBella prospect Ievgan Khyrtov go for not as he was KOed by Hugo Centeno Jr. Aleem will look to win on the undercard to get in position for a higher profile fight in the future.
Former world champion and three-time U.S. Olympian Rau’shee Warren will stay busy on the undercard as well. Warren is campaigning at the popular super flyweight division, a division that HBO is investing in. It will be interesting to see if Warren with his credentials can make some noise for a title shot with an impressive performance.
Popular Brooklyn boxer Heather “The Heat” Hardy will return to the boxing ring after beating women’s boxing pioneer Ana Julaton in an odd Bellator MMA bout. Hardy is looking to get a televised bout on a major network. A fight that could happen in the future could be against a woman who beat her in amateurs in Mikaela Mayer.
Welterweight Fabian Maidana, the brother of former world champion Marcos “China” Maidana will be featured as well as Mayweather Promotions super flyweight Dylan Price, 2016 U.S. Olympian Gary Antuanne Russell, super welterweight Chordale- Booker and New York stand-out Richardson Hitchins are notables featured on the undercard.
Khan vs. Lo Greco
Amir Khan will make his return to boxing after his brutal KO loss to Canelo Alvarez two years ago on Cinco De Mayo weekend. Khan will facing former prospect Phil Lo Greco in a fight that will show how much Khan has left.
Khan’s camp seems a bit dicey at best as he saw his longtime trainer Virgil Hunter have a medical condition that made him unable to coach for this camp. Khan enlisted Joe Goossen, an offensive minded trainer, the opposite of Hunter, a defensive mastermind, to train him.
Lo Greco, who has a terrific YouTube series entitled “The Culinary Fighter, seems to have a passion for food and fighting. Lo Greco appears to be training hard for this bout, but also looks a little big and that the weight cut might be an issue.
This fight also is on ESPN+, a subscription based platform online for ESPN content, essentially it is a $4.99 pay-per-view.
Sean Dodd vs. Tommy Coyle will provide an interesting assessment of talent as the two are both talented at the lightweight division, but neither has shown the ability to be elite. Basically, they’re fairly matched.
Frampton vs. Donaire
With the interim WBO featherweight title on the line as Carl Frampton and Nonito Donaire Jr. do battle in Frampton’s hometown of Belfast, Northern Ireland, streamed on Showtime Sports on Facebook and YouTube.
Frampton should be the sizable favorite as he is fighting at home, younger and looked better over the past few years, that being said Donaire always has a chance with his tremendous power.
Tete defends title
WBO bantamweight world champion Zolani Tete will face Omar Narvaez in the co-main event of the aforementioned show. Tete is one of, if not the hardest puncher below 122 lbs.
Lamont Roach Jr
Golden Boy Promotions put together a WTF moment as super featherweight prospect Lamont Roach Jr. will face Orlando Cruz on Thursday night in Puerto Rico. The confusion on my part comes from Roach being a high quality prospect, whom they’re sending into Cruz’s hometown, coming weeks after Joshua Franco got stopped controversially.
The bout which airs on ESPN2 is confusing to say the least as in a finically unstable time for Golden Boy Promotions, who just lost “Canelo” Alvarez’s super-fight against Gennady Golovkin, seems very strange to put one of their better prospects in so tough on a virtually anonymous card
Cruz is also notable as he is the first openly gay fighter.
Tomasz Adamek vs. Joey Abell
Tomasz Adamek will face Joey Abell in a fight that should see Adamek winning. Abell was stopped in one round by Chris Arreola years ago.
