Boxing Preview, February 11th
Photo by James Chance/Getty Images
A fairly light weekend of boxing this time, but there is a world title fight in the US and a headline feature for one of the UK’s most hyped prospects. Let’s take a look.
Rey Vargas vs O’Shaquie Foster
Super featherweight
This one is for the WBC title left vacant when Shakur Stevenson failed to make weight in his last fight, but won. You could argue that it’d only be fair to give Robson Conceicao the shot at it, but he’s not getting it, so here we are. Vargas gets this shot by dint of being the reigning WBC champ in the division below; Foster has been working up the WBC rankings for some time now.
As a fight, there’s a fair bit interesting about it on paper. Vargas is fighting for a title in his third weight class, but he’s still often overlooked when the top name comes up Foster is seeking to show that he’s world level, after a meandering and sometimes disrupted sort of road to get here. Both men have a lot to prove.
But. Well.
Last time, I argued, somewhat against the grain of thought at the time, that Vargas’ fight against Magsayo would be more exciting than many were predicting then, despite Vargas’ occasional tendency to stink out the joint. That turned out to be true, but that was because Vargas will accept a fight when someone brings it to him, and Magsayo very much did.
Foster… probably isn’t going to. He’s very much a defence first fighter, maintaining distance behind his jab and coming in only occasionally to deliver single power shots. He’s capable of biting down and dogfighting if he needs, but he’s primarily looking to defuse fights before they get to that stage. He’ll follow and press a fighter to a certain point if they back off, this won’t be a staring match, but he wants them to be the one reacting and engaging, he won’t make the final step himself very often.
So Vargas’ tendency to sit at range and poke and prod will probably not be met with fierce disagreement here. We’re likely to get a fight that’s high on tactical adjustments, lower on the toe-to-toe action. If Vargas feels he’s behind by some way, he may pick up the pace, but he doesn’t love doing that, so it’d take a lot to persuade him.
But, you know, you never know. I said very similar about Wood vs Conlan, and that turned out to be one of the fights of last year.
Tactical and other considerations for the fight? Foster’s orthodox but switches pretty smoothly, so that’ll play with Vargas’ attempts at finessing range. On the other hand, when he does throw that power hand, he does occasionally overbalance. He’s gotten away with it till now in his run towards the title, but at this level, Vargas is a fighter who can punish that. Similarly, while he protects his sides well, his stance and shell leave his body open down the middle, something Vargas will certainly look to punish. All-in-all, Vargas as the more experienced and proven fighter should have the advantage, but the fact that he’s stepping up in weight and Foster is a solid 130lber could factor in.
It’s also worth noting that both have been very inactive: for both men, this will be only their third fight since 2019. That kind of inactivity makes any prediction a bit tough to nail down, so hopefully mine goes out the window and we get a war.
The chief support is something of a crossroads fight at welterweight, as Mario Barrios fights Jovanie Santiago. Both have lost two on the trot, but both against world level fighters (well, ish. One of Santiago’s was against Adrien Broner, and the other was against Gary Antuanne Russel, who is almost definitely world class but hasn’t quite stepped up yet). They’ll be looking to recuperate for another go at that level. Barrios is certainly both the more proven of the two and the smoother, more technically solid boxer, but Santiago tried to go toe-to-toe with GAR so he won’t be here to lie down. He’ll probably get caught by a step-back counter though.
Beyond that, the card seems largely about late-starters in the pro game trying to make an impression, with a number of 29-30ish year old fighters with sub-10 fights making a showing. Let’s hope they jump at whatever chances they have.
Adam Azim vs Santos Reyes
Super lightweight
Azim is in a curious position at the moment. As a 20 year old with seven fights and no and no senior amateur achievements to speak of, having him headline a card in his eighth fight (not even his first headliner) is an unusual choice. For certain, he risks getting labeled a hype job, and he definitely is that to a point. He hasn’t even fought at British, or even English, level yet, so there’s an awful lot to prove. Still, Boxxer and Sky clearly see something in him that they think they can build their brand around for the next few years.
The encouraging thing is that as well as the obvious stuff- huge speed, power and accuracy leading to spectacular KOs in all fights since his debut- there’s a few signs that he’s ready to step up. Often when a young gun is blazing his way through these formational levels, he’ll neglect basic tools that he simply doesn’t need, but Azim doesn’t. He keeps himself protected even when going on the attack, showing a decent active high guard on a couple of occasions when an opponent’s thrown back at him. And he sets up his power shots in some clever ways- he probably wouldn’t need to against most of his opponents so far, if he just opened up and blasted at them he’d almost certainly get home reasonably fast. But he’s already practicing how to disguise his shots or hide them behind feints, and throwing unusual combinations that are hard to read, and that’s good to see this early.
Of course, whether any of that holds up under the slightest real pressure is open to question. We might get a sense of that here. Reyes is completely unknown, coming from Nicaragua and with a record built entirely of local fights there. Footage suggests he might have a little something, though. He’s aggressive by nature, but quite happy to step back and draw opportunities for counters if his opponent pushes forward. While pretty basic, and very hittable, he’s got a reasonably good variety of power shots and looks dangerous to exchange with in the pocket.
Realistically, he has been brought in to make Azim look good, give him an exciting fight but be too open to stand up to the power and accuracy. That’ll probably bear out, but this is the kind of fight that has slipped prospects up before. And even if not, we may find things out about Azim.
The best fight of the undercard has unfortunately been pulled, as light heavyweight Dan Azeez had to pull out of his European title fight against Thomas Faure with illness. Still, we get Zak Chelli, an exciting if scrappy super middleweight stepping in against Anthony Sims Jr, who despite being American had a bit of a push in the UK a couple of years ago before losing to Alexis Roamer Angulo. Having recuperated and restarted momentum since then, he’ll be looking to re-catch some attention on these shores here, and stylistically, with both being ready to throw but having defensive flaws, it could be fun.
There’s also an English middleweight title fight between Tyler Denny and Brad Pauls, and a spate of prospects, most notably Caroline Dubois and rising cruiserweight Viddal Riley taking steps up in competition.