TFS Boxing Preview, 10th December
It’s a busy day of boxing this Saturday, with Teofimo Lopez and Terence Crawford both in action in the US, plus Josh Warrington and Michael Conlan both in action on the other side of the pond. Let’s take a look.
(a note: we’ll point towards what’s notable on the undercards, but with such a busy week we won’t be digging into them too much)
Josh Warrington vs Luis Alberto Lopez
Featherweight
Josh Warrington is an aggressive, often awkward, sometimes dirty pressure fighter with a tendency to clash heads. Luis Alberto Lopez is an aggressive, often awkward, sometimes dirty pressure fighter with a tendency to clash heads.
I think it’s safe to say we’re not in for the smoothest display in the world.
Despite that description, they’re not actually all that similar once you get down to it. Warrington is a compact fighter who likes to throw from very close range and smother his opponent in volume from there. Lopez tends to throw from a lot further out, and leap in as he does so. That’s gonna get him in trouble some day, especially since his chin is very much in the air as he does, but Warrington isn’t too likely to be the one to KO him for it. He may, though, find himself able to anticipate the leaps and set himself to work as Lopez lands and resets. It’ll potentially give him either the opportunity to frame up advantageously immediately, or step around and work from angles. Warrington is the one with probably the better depth of skill in that sense, but it’s a live fight. And, provided it doesn’t end on a clash of heads, it should be a bit of scrappy, lively fun.
The undercard here is led by Ebanie Bridges, defending her IBF Bantamweight belt against fellow Australian Shannon O’Connell. Bridges always tends to push for a scrap, so it should be entertaining. The rest of the card is light- Felix Cash is involved, but purely staying busy after a disappointing summer and autumn of fights being avoided or falling through. James Metcalf is also here, and up for some kind of WBA trinket, but you wouldn’t expect Courtney Pennignton to seriously trouble him, and that’s the case for most of the card.
Michael Conlan vs Karim Guerfi
Featherweight
It’s a curious case that since his brutal knockout loss to Leigh Wood in March, Conlan has fought twice when his opponent that night is still yet to enter the ring. Of course, that’s partly due to training injuries Wood picked up, and also that Conlan’s first fight was a pure recovery rust-shaker against the experienced but very past-his-best Miguel Marriaga. Even in that fight, though, he took a few shots in the final round, so stepping in now against the tidy and capable Guerfi shows Conlan isn’t messing about.
Guerfi is also on the recovery trail, mind you. Back in February, he’d rocked, badly hurt, and was handily dominating Jordan Gill until a pitch-perfect counter right sealed an absolutely ludicrous comeback win for the Brit. Guerfi too had a loss-softener in summer, and is now being equally bold by stepping in with Conlan.
So it should be a good fight between two men who have something to prove. Style-wise Conlan is very definitely about keeping it at range, picking and poking his way to victory, but Wood showed- and Marriaga for a round too- that he can be got to and pushed or drawn into a firefight. Guerfi isn’t an identical fighter to Wood, but his brand of careful, jab-led approach work and pressure is similar enough that he should be aiming for the same gameplan. He probably doesn’t have the power to pull off a similar KO, though, so if he wants to win he’ll have to make sure that Conlan doesn’t build up a dominant lead. The Irishman should be favourite here, but it won’t be without difficulty.
The undercard isn’t star heavy. Sean McComb faces Zsolt Osadan for a belt that purports to be European but is actually a WBO trinket, there’s a couple of local Belfast guys being showcased in their hometown, and a few other Irish fighters to see as well.
Teofimo Lopez vs Sandor Martin
Super-lightweight
Martin is a late replacement in this fight, stepping in for Jose Pedraza on three weeks notice, but it isn’t a worse fight and if anything he might have more of a chance of derailing Lopez’s attempt to build himself at 140lbs. That’s because historically- both in the loss to George Kambosos and in his awkward, frustrating performance against Masayoshi Nakatani- Lopez’ biggest problems so far have come against fighters that he needs to pressure on. It’s yet to be seen whether Martin- a European champion who got his call to world level in a shock defeat of Mikey Garcia last year- is of the level to bring that frustration, but he certainly has the style.
Basically, what he’s going to do is jab and move. Not only, of course- he also likes to check hook as he turns his opponents, and generally mix up a variety of shots to follow the jab- but he’s not going to exchange in close if he can possibly avoid it. That means that either Lopez has to catch him with the rather crude swings he’s tended to default to when asked to move forward, or… well, just be better than he has. The former isn’t out of the question- Martin does tend to leave his chin out as he moves backwards, the kind of mistake that a big crude swing can capitalise on. But it’d really be to Lopez’ benefit to work his way in behind a jab and sort his footwork out, because if he falls short, although Martin isn’t likely to knock him out, he will happily pick at him with mid-range shots for the whole fight. It’s an interesting one, far from a given that the big star will win.
The undercard here is a solid showcase of some of the most exciting prospects on the American side of the sport, with Jared Anderson, Keyshawn Davis, Xander Zayas, Bruce Carrington, Delante Johnson and Jahi Tucker all in action. Worth getting in early.
Terence Crawford vs David Avanesyan
Featherweight
This really isn’t the fight we were hoping to see for Crawford around this time. It seemed like the big showdown with Errol Spence was so close, and now it seems farther than ever. The alternative team Bud came up with, the European champion David Avanesyan, is some way off from that sort of level. Avanesyan is by no means a bad fighter- and he’s receiving more disrespect than is really fair by some fans disappointed not to see the big show- but it’s a huge leap from where he’s at to where Bud is, and he’s not really shown the signs of someone who might make it just like that.
His style is pretty simple- put up the high guard, get forward, look to unload shots to the body to make openings to the head. He’s not unskilled by any means- he has a nice line in level changes and proactive head movement to creat angles for his shots, his footwork is decent, and he protects himself well inside- but he’s probably going to find himself too one-paced for Crawford. He doesn’t change his rhythm up much at all, and that’s likely to be compounded by his jab being something of a secondary punch. He’ll use it if he feels he has to - he did against Egidijus Kavaliauskas, but he lost that fight in part because he didn’t look super comfortable doing it, and he seems to prefer to approach without it. He’s also at a fairly significant length disadvantage, making that even more of a problem.
All of that is simply going to make it really hard to get or stay close to someone as good at reading his opponent’s rhythm and breaking it apart as Crawford is, and you’d imagine a fairly comfortable victory.
A disappointing main event is supported by an even more disappointing undercard. The most notable even is probably former MMA star Cris Cyborg, making her sort-of-kind-of debut in boxing, after some sanctioning malarkey in her previous debut prevented it from being counted, but… well, it’s an uninteresting fight. Arnold Keghai fights Eduwardo Baez, and… well, there’s not too much else to it to be honest. For a pay-per-view event it’s embarrassing.