These are the kind of weekends that can bring boxing back. Putting on quality fights and avoiding gaps on the schedule is huge. HBO is going to focus on the 140 pounders while Showtime has the smaller guys down at 118. Four greats fights and no pay-per-view!
The Showtime bantamweight card (9 p.m. ET/PT) should produce fireworks in Tacoma, Wash., and it features fighters with a combined record of 102-4-3.
Abnes Mares battles Vic Darchinyan while Joseph Agbeko will try to grab Yonny Perez's IBF title. The winners will face off in 2011.
Darchinyan's promoter almost wishes he could just be a fan for the night.
"Thanks to the fighters. Thanks to Showtime. Actually they should be thanking us for bringing them two great fights and four great fighters," Shaw said. "The television crowd will be rewarded on Saturday. I wish I didn't have any fighters in the ring so I could just watch on my couch and enjoy."
The Amir Khan-Marcos Maidana fight headlines the HBO card (9:30 p.m. ET/6:30 p.m. PT), with the strong possibility the victor will face the winner of the undercard fight, Victor Ortiz versus Lamont Peterson. Loser vs. loser would be great too.
But unlike the Showtime set up, this isn't officially tournament.
Tim Smith of the N.Y. Daily News says the junior welterweight division could be the future of boxing:
For much of this year everybody in boxing has been transfixed on the two boxers at the top of the sport – Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Bubbling underneath the surface has been the action in the 140-pound division – the most competitive and talent-laden in the sport.
With Khan and Maidana fighting on Saturday night and Bradley and Alexander, the two best in the division, fighting a month later, the 140-pound pot is about to reach a boil. And the sport of boxing will be better for it.
Bradley and Alexander square off in Detroit on Jan. 29. Golden Boy Promotion has to be rooting hard for Khan, but he's far from a lock to win the fight. The power-punching Maidana (29-1, 27 KOs) is super confident.
"This is a very important fight for my career," Maidana said through a translator. "But not the hardest."
Khan gives Maidana respect, but thinks people are sleeping on his power.
"Maidana is a big threat in the division and I only want to fight the best," Khan said. "When they put this together, it was said to be a ‘boxer’ vs a ‘fighter’… But I really think that I come into this fight as a puncher. People are taking my power away saying that Maidana is the bigger puncher. We’ll let everyone think that."
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