Happy holidays to everyone out there and boxing is giving its gift this weekend with a pair of events televised on HBO and Showtime that will surely have boxing fans happy for the upcoming holidays. For this article I’ll be going over the Golden Boy Card that involves such names as Keith Thurman, Abner Mares, Victor Ortiz, and both Charlo brothers that will be headlined by Amir “King” Khan squaring off against Devon Alexander “The Great.”
Amir Khan (29-3 with 19 KOs) is a fast-handed boxer who is born and very well followed in the UK. He has fought and defeated fighters such as Marco Antonio Barea, Andriy Kotelnik, Paulie Malignaggi, Chino Maidana, Paul McCloskey, and Zab Judah. However, everything hasn’t been prefect for Khan, sustaining losses from Lamont Peterson, Danny Garcia, and of course his 1st career loss, a 1st round KO to Breidis Prescott in the UK 6 years ago.
Devon Alexander (26-2 with 14 KOs) also has a pretty darn good resume. He’s defeated fighters such as Junior Witter, Juan Urango, Randall Bailey, a controversial win against Lucas Matthysee, and he also holds wins over Andriy Kotelnik and Chino Maidana. His losses have come to the likes of Timothy Bradley and Shawn Porter. He’s more of a technical fighter with not much power, but he also is a southpaw, which could complicate the rhythm of this fight.
The goal of both of these fighters is very obvious. They want a shot against Floyd “Money” Mayweather. Amir Khan probably has the inside advantage because he was close to a shot at Floyd earlier this year and a fight against Khan would bring in more of the UK and overseas fans. From a purely boxing standpoint, this is a very tough fight to call. Khan has quicker hand speed and Devon uses his jab and technically is more skilled overall. For some reason I feel Khan will be extra motivated in this fight and since Alexander is the type of power puncher that has given Khan trouble in the past, I have to pick Khan by unanimous decision, 117-111, 116-112, and 115-113.
Also on this card will be the return of Keith “One Time” Thurman. We haven’t seen him since April when he stopped Julio Diaz. He’ll be stepping into the ring with an undefeated record of 23-0 with 21 KOs. He is looked at as one of the next big rising stars for Golden Boy Promotions. However, he has to stay more active and he has only fought 3 rounds in the last year. He must regain the momentum that he had when he was destroying everything in his path from the start of 2013 till that fight in April of this year.
Thurman will be defending his interim WBA world welterweight belt against another undefeated fighter, the 40 year old, light punching, Leonard “The Lion” Bundu. Even though Bundu has an undefeated record of 31-0-2 with 11 KOs, his best wins have been Lee Purdy and Frankie Gavin. In my opinion, he’ll just be another name that Thurman can put on his resume to hype him back up. I don’t consider Bundu a top 10 welterweight and I think Thurman will stop him by the 5th round.
Another fighter who will be showcased on this card is Abner Mares. He’ll be entering Saturday night with a record of 27-1-1 with 14 KOs, but the fight that a lot of people remember him for is the one he is trying to make it back from, the 1st round KO to the hands of Jhonny Gonzalez. During that time Mares was in the midst of a stretch of fights that could have taken any person out. Facing Yonnhy Perez, Vic Darchinyan, Joseph Agbeko twice, and then facing Anselmo Moreno and Daniel Ponce De Leon, all before the Gonzalez fight seemed like too much. He hopes to build himself back up against Jose Ramirez (25-4 with 15 KOs). I think he will win this pretty easily and start getting bigger fights again next year.
Speaking of returns, another big name returning to the ring on this card will be “Vicious” Victor Ortiz 29-5-2 with 22 KOs). I could probably write an entire article on Ortiz himself with all the things that surround the 27 year old. Since the loss to Floyd Mayweather, he has been upset twice by Josesito Lopez and Luis Collazo. He’s been written off by most boxing fans, but he hopes to try to regain some more of the fans confidence and he’ll be facing Manuel Perez (22-10-1 with 4 KOs). This one should be easy for him, but it will be interesting to see what happens after this.
Lastly, both Charlo brothers (Jermall and Jermell) will also be on the card, with Jermall (19-0 with 15 KOs) facing Lenny Bottai (22-2 with 9 KOs) and Jermell 24-0 with 11 KOs) facing Mario Lozano (28-5 with 22 KOs). Both of them should honestly win pretty easy as both are on another talent level from their opponents. It’s surprising that to this point neither one has seemed to make the jump to bigger fights in the junior middleweight division as of yet. However Jermell seems to be on the edge of breaking through with wins over Demetrius Hopkins and Gabriel Rosado.
To be honest, if you want to get someone to watch a card for the “names” instead of the substance, this is probably the card for you. It involves a lot of possible future stars of the sport and some current big names that even casual fans would know. If you compare it to the other card, I think their matchups may be better, but if you are just looking to scout on who could be boxing’s next big name, then look no further than this Golden Boy Production card and enjoy the fights.
