Smorgasbord of Boxing & MMA this weekend
Lucian Bute will get tested on Saturday when Glen Johnson comes to town.
If you don’t have more than one TV or more than one recording devise, then you better get your remote control warmed up because you’re going to have some serious channel changing to do come Saturday.
First, we have the IBF super middleweight title holder Lucian Bute defending his crown against Glen Johnson.
The scheduled 12-round, 168-pound title fight will be aired on Showtime from the Pepsi Coliseum in Quebec City at 9:00 p.m. PT.
Glen Johnson
Bute (29-0, 24 knockouts), a former amateur standout from Romania, is attempting to make his ninth defense of the IBF belt won from Alejandro Berrio in 2007. He’s stopped his last six opponents, including a fourth-round body shot KO of rugged contender Librado Andrade, a 10th round stoppage of European champ Brian Magee and a brutal fourth-round KO of unbeaten French standout Jean Paul Mendy.
Johnson (51-15-2, 35 KOs), is 4-4 in his last eight bouts, but his losses were decisions to Chad Dawson (twice), Tavoris Cloud and Carl Froch. Between those losses – all of which were competitive, except for his rematch with Dawson – the 42-year-old veteran knocked out fringe contenders Yusaf Mack and Allan Green.
Alfredo “El Perro” Angulo
HBO counters at 10:15 p.m. with a junior middleweight clash between 29 year-old Alfredo “El Perro” Angulo (20-1-0, 17 KOs) from Coachella, CA and James “Mandingo Warrior” Kirkland (29-1-0, 26 KOs) from Austin, Texas. This will be Kirkland’s sixth fight of 2011. Win or lose his fights end early; not one of his last five fights got passed the second round.
Like Kirkland, Angulo’s fights don’t last long. Four of his last five didn’t get past the third round. Saturday’s clash with Kirkland is only his second fight this year.
FOX Deportes’ Top Rank Live series presents former super flyweight titleholder Tomas “Gusano” Rojas going up against Dario Azuaga at 10 p.m.
Also, don’t forget ESPN Deportes. They’ll be bringing us the Chris Arreola (33-2-0, 28 KOs) of Riverside, CA versus Raphael Butler (35-11-0, 28 KOs) of Rochester, Minnesota that heavyweight bout from Leon, Mexico. This one also airs at 10:15 p.m. Of Butler’s 35 lifetime wins, only 10 were over a boxer with a winning record. His last win was over Marcus Rhode (34-38-2) back on September 9, 2009.
Oliver McCall
According to the show’s promoter, Azteca America is also planning to televise the heavyweight bout from Uncasville, Connecticut, between 31 year-old Mariusz Wach (25-0-0, 13 KOs) of North Bergen, N.J. by way of Poland and Oliver McCall (56-11-0, 37 KOs) of Martinsville, VA.
Don King is also presenting a card on WealthTV from Hollywood, Florida. In his main event he has WBA cruiserweight champion Guillermo Jones defending his crown against Michael Marrone. The program “Viva Don King” goes live at 8 p.m. with five fights to include the middleweight battle between southpaw Joey “Twinkle Fingers” Hernandez (19-1-1, 11 KOs) of Miami, Florida and Elco Garcia (25-7-0, 12 KOs) of Ignacio, Colorado. You can watch the fight free of charge on their website, www.wealthtv.com.
Joey “Twinkle Fingers” Hernandez
Also, don’t forget UFC 138 with their headliners Chris Leben and Mark Munoz from the LG Arena in Birmingham, England. It is to be broadcast on Spike TV (same-day delay) and Facebook (live).
MAIN CARD (Spike TV)
- Chris Leben vs. Mark Munoz
- Renan Barao vs. Brad Pickett
- Papy Abedi vs. Thiago Alves
- Terry Etim vs. Edward Faaloloto
- Anthony Njokuani vs. Paul Taylor
PRELIMINARY CARD (Facebook)
- Cyrille Diabate vs. Anthony Perosh
- Justin Edwards vs. John Maguire
- Michihiro Omigawa vs. Jason Young
- Rob Broughton vs. Philip De Fries
- Chris Cope vs. Che Mills
- Chris Cariaso vs. Vaughan Lee
Monday, salaries of UFC 137 were announced by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. They included: Nick Diaz ($200,000), B.J. Penn ($150,000), Cheick Kongo ($140,000) and Brandon Vera ($120,000) as their top earners. Overall, the 22 fighters who competed on the card earned purses totaling $1,026,000.
It sure looks like the powers to be of boxing are trying their best to snuff out any competition from the MMA world. There message: Boxing is the sweet science with ongoing excitement. That MMA junk is only a quick fix. It’s either over in 8 seconds or they bore you to death with 9 minutes of guys grabbing each other.
