Fight Site Boxing Preview, December 4th/5th
Photo by Jack Thomas/Getty Images
Another busy weekend in the sport, with two cards on Saturday and one on Sunday. In the US, two cards topped by world title fights, and in the UK, a British-level rematch. Let’s take it from the top.
Lyndon Arthur vs Anthony Yarde, 4th December
Arthur vs Yarde is the rematch, of course, of their light-heavyweight fight almost exactly a year ago. Arthur won that one by jabbing and moving with Yarde and his slow feet able to do little about it. Since Yarde is still with the controversial Tunde Ajayi as his head coach, the easiest prediction would be to say the same thing will happen, but Yarde did add some new blood in James Cook to his camp over summer, and while the one-rounder against the vastly overmuch Alex Theran was far too little to show if any changes would ingrain in any useful way, Yarde was at least making the effort to move and punch at the same time. If he can do that in this fight, his handspeed and power could catch him the knockout against Arthur, whose defence does largely rely on not being there over more complex guards, slips and evasions. It’s still a long shot to predict a victory based on training speculation and a soft-pitch one-rounder, but don’t be surprised if Yarde brings a little more to the table.
The card also features rising British prospect Hamzah Sheeraz against Bradley Skeete at light-middleweight. This is a hard fight to parse because Skeete has been out since 2018 and appeared to have retired — he’s had one fight in 2021, seemingly in a literal carpark, and is now facing one of the UK’s brightest prospects. If he has anything left in the tank this could be a test because Skeete in his day was not at all a bad fighter, but in reality he looked way past that best in taking two unexpected losses in 2018 and we’ve simply not seen anything since to judge if some rest time will help him recover. When you combine that with him being a career 147er — a tall one, to be sure, the rare fighter the officially 6 foot 1, probably actually a bit taller Sheeraz won’t have too much height advantage over — but one who’s never fought above that weight against a winning record. If his seeming shotness two years ago was down in part to a bad weight cut and he’s fresher than I think, his tricky mobile style will give Sheeraz, who for all his height is by preference an in-close fighter, something to work out, but ultimately Skeete’s hands-down reflexive defense is going to get him in trouble at 34 against someone with fast hands and more height than anyone he’s faced before.
Also featured are Sam Noakes, a raw (he still stance-switches what seems to be by accident, which will be an issue as he moves up, and might possibly be here) but exciting and aggressive prospect at 135 making something of a step up against Shaun Cooper, and Dennis McCann, another of the UK’s most exciting youngsters, facing Argentine journeyman Juan Jose Jurado. McCann should win that handily, but he’s one you should be keeping an eye on as he moves up the ranks.
Devin Haney vs Joseph Diaz Jr, 4th December
There’ll be some quibbling over whether Haney vs Diaz, for the WBC 135lbs world title belt, is ‘really’ a world championship — years of bullshittery with emails, franchise champions, dropped interims and general nonsense have left us with a situation where it’s not really clear who stands where in the alphabet hierarchy, and whether Haney or George Kambosos, fresh from his shock win over Teofimo Lopez, are the proper champion. Regardless, this is a very good fight, with Diaz probably the best replacement Haney could have taken when Ryan Garcia pulled out (and a former world champion at the weigh below). That credit should go to Diaz too, who in the last few years has never knowingly taken a soft-touch fight.
Between the two of them, Haney is certainly both the more gifted and more technically rounded boxer of the two, carrying both a significant speed advantage and a more complete technical game. He does, however, still have that issue where he makes small, but dangerous, errors of stance and positioning, particularly in close. Diaz is not a particularly quick fighter at getting into the pocket but once he’s there he’s compact, accurate and reasonably powerful, and if Haney isn’t careful he could find himself in trouble. Because he can also keep a fight at distance well you’d have to think a wide win for the younger man would be the most likely outcome, but if Diaz can force or goad his way into those closer exchanges he could see some success there.
The card was also supposed to feature a top women’s boxing match with Jessica McCaskill defending her full collection of belts at 147lbs against Victoria Bustos, but the Argentine challenger couldn’t get into the US, so she faces late replacement Kandi Wyatt instead. Also in action is Montana Love, fresh of his upset win against Ivan Baranczyk, looking to solidify his contender status against Mexican slugger Carlos Diaz Ramirez. Both fighters here are happy to bite down and fight, and Ramirez’ only loss so far was against Carlos Zepeda, so this could be a nice little war.
Gervonta Davis vs Isaac Cruz, 5th December
Sunday’s main event features Gervonta Davis taking on Isaac Cruz for the lightweight WBA title. He was supposed to be fighting Rolly Romero, before domestic violence accusations caused him to be pulled, but in truth this is probably the better fight. Cruz isn’t tested at this level, and it’s not impossible that Tank’s speed and power simply overwhelm him, especially since he is prone to leaving himself open for no good reason, but he’s got nice footwork, fast hands thrown in decent combination, and his last win against Francisco Vargas saw him use a combination of boxing at range behind a jab to defuse Vargas’ aggression and well-timed moments of aggression to eventually turn the direction and start pushing him back, showing an adaptability that could cause the champion trouble. It would be a lie to say that Tank is a bad boxer, but his attack is more reliant on speed and having the knack of throwing shots with no tell (he is very good at disguising what’s coming) than actual setup, and while he knows how to defend himself he doesn’t do it so much while throwing. Leo Santa Cruz — whose skillset is not completely dissimilar to Cruz’s — gave him trouble over this before taking the eventual massive shot that ended it in Davis’ favour, and he was, though the taller man, up in weight and past his best. Cruz being fresher and, though shorter than LSC, more used to the weight, will hope that when he draws Davis into overreaching or leaping — something he’s prone to — he can punish that more conclusively. A lot hinges on Cruz’s untested intangibles here, but this could be a very good fight, and we might see an upset.
The main support is a very good super-welterweight clash at 154lbs. Sebastian Fundora is primarily known for being really, really tall (6 foot 5!) but he’s a legitimately good boxer, whereas the Spaniard Sergio Garcia is finally being given a chance at a second step up having been somewhat left out in the cold (most likely partly due to the pandemic, to be fair) since breaking through to wider attention when unexpectedly beating the brakes off Ted Cheeseman in defense of his European title back in 2019. This is very much a clash of two fighters looking to step up to world level. Garcia demonstrated both real slickness and very high volume in that Cheeseman fight, protecting himself very well while throwing and moving, whereas Fundora uses his height to throw accurate intercepting shots and then generates real power when slugging it out in close. Definitely one to tune in for, could be the fight of the weekend.
The rest of a pretty deep card features Sergey Dervyanchenko seeking to prove he’s still got something for the middleweight division against Dominican Carlos Adames, himself trying to prove himself world level after losing his only previous fight at this sort of level (at 154 against Patrick Teixera), and what could be an action fight between Eduardo Ramirez and the much-tested veteran Miguel Marriaga.