Greetings and welcome to the first post of In the Squared Circle here on Fajador. My name is Felipe Leon, former International Editor for Fightnews.com and what is considered a “boxing guy”. Throughout my journey in the sport, I’ve served as a writer, reporter, public relations for individual fighters and promotional companies, matchmaker, cornerman, manager and for a short period partner in a now-defunct promotional company in Mexico.
In this weekly column, you the reader, will indulge me in reading (and hopefully enjoying) my musings in all things boxing in and outside of the ring. From up-and-coming fights to results and everything in between in what is the considered the “red light district of sports”.
With that said….
Historic Night
I truly believe there will be a before and after in female boxing after Friday night’s fight between the undisputed unified lightweight champion Katie Taylor and unified featherweight champion Amanda Serrano. This is their third meeting with Taylor taking two first, but the fights were so close, the fans as well as the fighters were more than happy to see one more. Despite the first fight having an outstanding reported viewership of 1.5 million on DAZN, the second destroyed that number with a reported 74 million watching worldwide. The difference? First, it was a semi-main event of Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson, the second reason, the platform. Like the second fights, this third one will be again on Netflix but now as the main event of an all-female world title fight card.
Through the history of the sport there has been all-female fight cards, from Japan to Mexico to even in the United States but never at the scale and with the star power seen this Friday night. More important than that, it has never been done on this huge of a platform.
All but two fights on the card will be for at least one world title with many of them for multiple straps with the main event the most competitive. Other notables are the Brit Ellie Scotney against Yamileth Mercado of Mexico for three at 122 pounds, American Alycia Baumgardner defending all the titles at 130 pounds against Spain’s Jennifer Miranda and another Brit Savannah Marshall facing Shadashia Green of the USA for the WBO and IBF world titles at 168 pounds.
All this brought to us by Jake Paul’s Most Valued Promotions, say what you will about the guy, at the end his legacy in the sport will not come down to what he achieves inside the ring but what he already has achieved outside of it with and for female boxing.
Saturday Night
As if that wasn’t enough, on Saturday night on we have the latest offering from the Chairman of the General Entertainment Authority of Saudi Arabia Turki Alsheikh. If you follow the sport, you know how much of an impact Alsheikh has done already in the last couple of years and how much he is planning to do in the future. On Saturday from New York, he gives us a great classic matchup between boxer versus brawler in the undefeated Shakur Stevenson versus the also unbeaten William Zepeda.
Stevenson is known as an Olympian with the closest style of “hit and not be hit” of the famed Floyd Mayweather Jr out of all the current fighters while Mexico’s Zepeda is relentless come-forward brawler. The style match up has all the makings of an instant classic or quite frankly a complete dud depending on who of the two wins. Because of that it is a non-miss fight but it is a shame it is on DAZN PPV where it does not belong. You add the co-main event of Edgar Berlanga and Hamzah Sheeraz and you really aren’t adding any value.
Other Musings
– The biggest news of the week was the arrest by ICE of former world champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr and pending deportation. Without getting into the politics of it, despite his troubles, it is a tragedy the current situation of the son of the Mexican legend. Unfortunately, if the ties to criminal elements are proven, it will go down in history of another example where a fighter can’t get out of his own way.
He won’t be the first or the last.
-It was announced this weekend that former 140- and 147-pound world champion Ricky “Hitman” Hatton will making a comeback at 46 years old and after 12 years in Dubai. The details of the fight are not important, the only left to say is, why?
-This past Saturday night in France a fighter by the name of Khalil El Hadri captured the vacant WBC Interim Silver super featherweight title. Who he beat and how is irrelevant, the only questions here are what is exactly is the Interim Silver title, why is there an interim version of it and does boxing need an Interim Silver super featherweight champion?
