Notebook: Bitter rivals Shields, Marshall have date for undisputed grudge match

Andy Ruiz-Luis Ortiz done deal for Fox PPV; Canelo-GGG III will be at familiar venue; Joe Smith Jr. comments on KO loss; Hatton-Barrera exhibition ppd.; Quick hits; Show and tell

Jun 22, 2022

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The long-awaited and delayed fight between fierce rivals Claressa Shields and Savannah Marshall to unify all four belts for the undisputed women’s middleweight title will take place on Sept. 10 at The O2 in London, a source with direct knowledge of the specifics told Fight Freaks Unite.

An official announcement from promoter Boxxer and British broadcaster Sky Sports is expected soon after the July 4th holiday.

Shields (12-0, 2 KOs), 27, of Flint, Michigan, who also is an MMA fighter in the PFL, has been the undisputed middleweight champion before. But when she moved down to junior middleweight, where she also became the undisputed champion in March 2021, she vacated the WBO middleweight title.

Marshall (12-0, 10 KOs), 31, of England, went on to win the vacant WBO belt in October 2020 and Shields is aiming to become the two-time undisputed champion against her amateur nemesis in a fight that has been anticipated for years. Shields went 77-1 as an amateur and won two Olympic gold medals. Her lone loss was to Marshall in 2012.

Shields is headed back to fight in the U.K. for the second fight in a row as part of her deal with Boxxer, which also promotes Marshall. Shields shut out Emma Kozin to retain her WBC/IBF/WBA belts on Feb. 5 in Cardiff, Wales. Marshall knocked out Femke Hermans in the third round to retain her belt on April 2 in Newcastle, England.

Shields-Marshall was initially planned for June 25 and then in July but it was pushed back to the fall for various reasons.

Ruiz-Ortiz finalized

The long-expected fight between former unified heavyweight titlist Andy Ruiz Jr. and two-time title challenger Luis “King Kong” Ortiz is set.

The fight will take place on Sept. 4 — the Sunday of Labor Day weekend — at Crypto Arena in Los Angeles and headline a Premier Boxing Champions card on Fox Sports PPV.

PBC announced the fight on Tuesday only in an alert containing ticket information. They go on sale Thursday via AXS.

The fight was originally discussed for Aug. 13 but pushed back a month.

Ruiz (34-2, 22 KOs), 32, of Imperial, California, has not fought since getting dropped in the second round and getting up to win an exciting unanimous decision over former title challenger Chris Arreola in May 2021 in Carson, California. Ruiz has parted ways with trainer Eddy Reynoso and is being trained now by Alfredo Osuna.

The win over Arreola was Ruiz’s first fight since Anthony Joshua schooled an out-of-shape Ruiz in a one-sided decision to regain the unified title in their rematch in December 2019 in Saudi Arabia. Ruiz had scored a massive upset six months earlier when he knocked Joshua out in the seventh round at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

Ortiz (33-2, 28 KOs), 43, a Cuban southpaw fighting out of Miami, suffered both of his losses by knockout challenging then-titlist Deontay Wilder. Ortiz is coming off a sixth-round knockout of former titlist Charles Martin, who dropped Ortiz in the first and fourth rounds, in the exciting main event of a Fox PPV on Jan. 1 in Hollywood, Florida.

Canelo-GGG 3 site

The third fight between Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin on Sept. 17 (DAZN PPV) — Mexican Independence Day weekend — will take place at a familiar site: T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, where the first two bouts of their rivalry also took place.

Matchroom Boxing announced the site via social media on Tuesday, noting the dates of the previous bouts and adding, “It's only fitting the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas hosts the Canelo vs. GGG trilogy.”

The first fight on Sept. 16, 2017, for Golovkin’s three middleweight world titles, ended in a heavily disputed split draw most had Golovkin winning. The rematch, on Sept. 15, 2018, ended with Alvarez winning a disputed majority decision to take GGG’s belts and end his historic middleweight title reign after a division record-tying 20 successful defenses.

Now they will meet for Alvarez’s undisputed super middleweight title as Golovkin, a reigning two-belt unified middleweight titlist, will move up in weight to challenge him.

T-Mobile Arena generated enormous gates for the first two Canelo-GGG showdowns. The first fight produced a live gate of $27,059,850 and the second one $23,473,500, among the biggest gates in boxing history.

The fight will be Alvarez’s seventh at T-Mobile Arena and Golovkin’s third.

A two-city media tour to promote the fight kicks off on Friday with a news conference in Los Angeles followed by a second one on Monday in New York.

Joe Smith Jr. speaks

After Artur Beterbiev scored three knockdowns and demolished Joe Smith Jr. via second-round knockout to unify three light heavyweight world titles on Saturday night at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York, Smith did not do any post-fight interviews as he was being checked out by medical personnel.

But on Monday, Smith made his first public remarks since the fight in an Instagram post.

“I would like to start off by saying thank you to everyone who supports me and my career,” Smith, who is from New York’s Long Island and was the overwhelming crowd favorite. “I enjoy fighting for each and every one of you.

“This past weekend did not go as planned as I lost my focus on the game plan after making a mistake that led me to getting caught behind my ear knocking off my equilibrium that I could not recover from. No excuses. I should have took a deep breath, relaxed and got back to boxing. I just wanted to fight which lead me into the same traps.”

Montreal’s Beterbiev (18-0, 18 KOs) — boxing’s only current champion with a perfect knockout record — dropped Smith (28-4, 22 KOs ) in the final seconds of the first round and twice more in the second before stopping him on his feet with a pair of uppercuts and a right hand that spun him around and left him wobbling and unable to protect himself.

Hatton-Barrera exhibition ppd.

The eight-round exhibition between British legend Ricky Hatton, the former junior welterweight and welterweight titleholder, and Hall of Famer Marco Antonio Barrera, a three-division champion, has been postponed from July 2 at AO Arena in Hatton’s hometown of Manchester, England, to Nov. 12.

The exhibition was scheduled to be on the same event as the heavyweight eliminator between Hughie Fury and Michael Hunter but Fury became ill last week and was forced out of the fight. Broadcaster Sky Sports elected to postpone the entire event until Nov. 12.

Hatton said he has been training for 15 weeks to get into fighting shape and has dropped 40 pounds.

“I wish Hughie a speedy recovery but I’m obviously gutted as I have been training so hard for this event,” Hatton said in a statement. “But I’ll take a little break and be back fitter and stronger for the new date with the fans. We’ve all waited a long time for this, so I hope the fans can be a little more patient so we can be back with a bigger and better show in November.”

Hatton (45-3, 32 KOs), 43, has not boxed since a ninth-round knockout loss to former welterweight titlist Vyacheslav Senchenko in Manchester, in November 2012. He had come out of a 2½-year retirement following his brutal KO loss to Manny Pacquiao in 2009.

Barrera (67-7, 44 KOs), 48, who retired in 2011, boxed in exhibitions with Daniel Ponce De Leon and Jesus Soto Karass last year.

Quick hits

Contrary to reports that Adrien Broner and Omar Figueroa Jr., a pair of faded former titleholders, would meet in a welterweight fight July 23 in Chicago, that is not accurate, a source with knowledge of the plans told Fight Freaks Unite. While the fight is likely to happen and air on Showtime, there is no site yet and the fight is targeted for August, the source said. Broner (34-4-1, 24 KOs), 32, of Cincinnati, has had numerous issues outside the ring as his career faded badly inside the ring. The four-division titlist has boxed only three times since 2017 and is 1-1-1 during the stretch with his decision over Jovanie Santiago in his last fight in February 2021 heavily disputed. Former lightweight titlist Figueroa (28-2-1, 19 KOs), 32, of Weslaco, Texas, has also only had three fights since 2017 and lost his last two, most recently by one-sided sixth-round knockout to Abel Ramos in May 2021.

Mexico’s Emanuel Navarrete (35-1, 29 KOs), 27, will end a 10-month layoff and defend his WBO featherweight title against countryman Eduardo Baez (21-2-2, 7 KOs), 26, on Aug. 20 in the Top Rank Boxing on ESPN main event at Pechanga Arena in San Diego, sources with knowledge of the plans told Fight Freaks Unite. Navarrete, who has not fought since pounding out a clear decision over Joet Gonzalez in an ultra-exciting fight in October at Pechanga Arena, will be making his third defense. Baez dropped a majority decision to junior featherweight contender Ra’eese Aleem in November 2021 but rebounded for a majority decision over Jose Vivas on March 26 on a Top Rank undercard in Las Vegas. Las Vegas middleweight Nico Ali Walsh (5-0, 4 KOs), 21, the grandson of Muhammad Ali, will appear on the undercard, sources said.

Jonathan Gonzalez (25-3-1, 14 KOs), 31, a Puerto Rican southpaw, will make his first defense of the WBO junior flyweight title against former strawweight title challenger Mark Anthony Barriga (11-1, 2 KOs), 28, a 2012 Olympian from the Philippines, on Friday at Osceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee, Florida. The card will stream live on ProBoxTV (7:30 p.m. ET). In the junior flyweight co-feature, Mexico’s Axel Vega (15-4-1, 8 KOs) faces Venezuela’s Angelino Cordova (16-0-1, 12 KOs) in a 10-round regional title bout.

The next edition of “Golden Boy Fight Night” is set for July 28 (DAZN, 9 p.m. ET) at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, California, with a pair of eight-rounders in the main bouts. Lightweight Jousce “Tito” Gonzalez (12-0-1, 11 KOs), 27, of Glendora, California, will face Jose Angulo (14-2, 7 KOs), 25, of Miami, in the main event and bantamweight Manuel Flores (12-0, 9 KOs), 23, a southpaw from Coachella, California, will face Mexico’s Daniel Moncada (15-6-2, 5 KOs), 29, in the co-feature. The rest of the card is to be announced.

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Russian junior middleweight contender Magomed Kurbanov (22-0, 13 KOs), 26, and former WBO titlist Patrick Teixeira, 31, a southpaw from Brazil, who has lost two fights in a row, will meet in a 10-rounder on July 9 in Ekaterinburg, Russia in the main event of an RCC Boxing Promotions card. The fight was scheduled for last Dec. 21 but postponed on fight day when Kurbanov became ill. It was rescheduled for March 26 but canceled when the sanctioning organizations said they would not sanction world or regional title bouts in Russia because of its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. The fight, initially a WBO regional title bout, has been rescheduled again but with no sanctioning body involvement.

Show and tell

Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales, who are both Hall of Famers and among the greatest boxers ever from Mexico, won titles in multiple weight classes and engaged in many thrilling fights. But they are best remembered for their all-time classic trilogy. Their first fight, which was to unify junior featherweight world titles, is one of the greatest fights in boxing history, an all-out slugfest of the highest order that resulted in a controversial split decision victory for Morales. A little over two years later they met in the inevitable and hugely hyped rematch, this time for Morales’ WBC featherweight world title in a fight I was ringside to cover at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

The fight, which had been delayed for three months because Barrera suffered a rib injury in training, was the least exciting of the trilogy but still a worthy fight between legends. Whereas Morales got the disputed decision in the first fight, Barrera won a heavily debated decision in the sequel, 116-112, 115-113 and 115-113, but declined to accept the WBC featherweight title he had won, so it became vacant. The rematch took place on June 22, 2002 — 20 years ago on Wednesday. Here are two posters from the fight in my collection: the site poster that could be purchased during fight week and on fight night at the MGM Grand as well as an extraordinarily rare site duratran advertising the fight that hung in an MGM Grand light box during fight week.