Notebook: Edwards, Catterall among new Matchroom signings
Ortiz, Stanionis speak out on postponement; BetUS show; purse bid updates; Quick hits; Show and tell
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Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn unveiled a trio of signings on Friday at a news conference in London: IBF flyweight titlist Sunny Edwards, top junior welterweight contender Jack Catterall and women’s junior bantamweight prospect Shannon Ryan, all of whom will box on DAZN.
Edwards (19-0, 4 KOs), 27, of England, who has made three title defenses, had been with Probellum but they went out of business earlier this year and his contract was apparently not part of the assets bought by upstart Disrupt Promotions.
Edwards fits in well at Matchroom Boxing because his goal has been to unify titles and Matchroom promotes WBC titlist Julio Cesar Martinez.
“I’m extremely excited at this stage of my career to be partnering up with Eddie Hearn and Matchroom Boxing,” Edwards said. “Eddie has always been one of the most influential men on the boxing circuit since I’ve been involved in the sport and the conversations were simple. We both want to deliver the biggest fights possible every time.
“I’m hoping to be out June, July time. I’d originally hoped I’d have been out a little bit earlier in this year, but a rest after a few busy years boxing has done me good. I’m not content defending world titles, I need more.”
Edwards would love to meet Martinez in a unification fight. Martinez knocked out Charlie Edwards, Sunny’s brother, in a 2019 title fight that was changed to a no contest because Martinez was ruled to have landed a punch while Edwards was down. Charlie Edwards then declined a mandated rematch
“First, I want to unify whilst collecting The Ring magazine title,” Edwards said. “It has always been a big dream of mine to hold arguably the biggest prize in boxing today. It seems as if Martinez is the man for that, but at this point it’s whoever comes first. I’m looking forward to the challenges ahead whatever they may be. Bring me the fighter they tell me I can’t beat — and repeat.”
Hearn said he will be able to deliver Edwards a major fight this year.
“Sunny Edwards is one of the most naturally gifted boxers we have produced in the U.K. and I’m incredibly excited to finally get the opportunity to work with him and give him the opportunities to unify the flyweight division,” Hearn said. “Sunny can certainly talk the talk and he can definitely walk the walk and a fight against WBC ruler Julio Cesar Martinez or Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez is a must for 2023.”
Catterall (26-1, 13 KOs), 29, a southpaw from England, has not fought since a hugely controversial decision loss challenging then-undisputed junior welterweight champion Josh Taylor in Taylor’s home country of Scotland in February 2022.
A rematch was postponed multiple times and ultimately canceled earlier this year due a Taylor foot injury.
“I’m excited for the next phase of my career,” Catterall said. “Teaming up with Eddie Hearn's Matchroom Boxing and DAZN is a massive step in the right direction for me. There are going to be some huge nights in the future and I’m excited to get the ball rolling and to be involved in some career-defining fights over the next couple of years. I have been working tremendously hard in the gym and I will be ready for any opportunity that presents itself. I’m grateful to be in this position and I'm looking forward to kicking off a successful relationship with Matchroom and DAZN.”
Catterall had signed with Boxxer in order to facilitate the bout with Top Rank’s Taylor — they share Sky Sports in the United Kingdom as a broadcaster — but when the Taylor fight fell through Catterall became a free agent.
“Jack Catterall is another signing that we are massively excited about, and he should arguably be the reigning undisputed champion following his brilliant performance against Josh Taylor,” Hearn said. “Jack is itching to get back into the ring following a layoff that was out of his control and there are some big fights to make for him in the competitive 140-pound division.”
Ryan (4-0, 0 KOs), 26, of England, who also had been with Boxxer, is managed by former two-time unified heavyweight titlist Anthony Joshua's 258 Management and Joshua has been with Matchroom Boxing for his entire career.
“I look forward to being able to showcase my skills on the big stage and to millions of people around the world on DAZN,” Ryan said. “Being in those big fights and collecting those world titles is why I am in this sport.”
Ortiz, Stanionis statements
When Vergil Ortiz Jr. had a recurrence of the blood disorder rhabdomyolysis that left him unable to train properly — it previously caused a fight to be postponed last year — his much-anticipated mandatory bout against WBA “regular” welterweight titlist Eimantas Stanionis was postponed on Wednesday.
It had been scheduled to headline a Golden Boy card on DAZN on April 29 at the College Park Center on the campus of the University of Texas at Arlington in Arlington, Texas, which is the home region for Ortiz (19-0, 19 KOs), 25, who is from nearby Grand Prairie.
The fight was originally scheduled for March 18, but delayed until April because Stanionis (14-0, 9 KOs), 28, of Lithuania, had to undergo an emergency appendectomy in January.
Golden Boy hopes to reschedule the fight for July. Both fighters put out their thoughts about the second postponement in social media posts.
Ortiz wrote about his disappointment due to the medical issue and added, “I’m not feeling anywhere near myself. We’ve spent money to just to even make this fight a possibility, and even more on camp because we believe in my ability. The only way this fight wasn’t gonna happen is if something serious was happening.
“I’m already a couple of days into treatment and we are doing everything to be 100% healthy as swiftly as possible. Also, I am optimistic that this fight will still happen, just on a later date so don’t worry. I was really looking forward to this fight but we’ll just have to wait a little longer.”
Stanionis wrote, “Wishing Vergil a speedy recovery! Hope he is doing well. Tough sport and you never know what can happen. Answering a question what’s next for me, at this moment I don’t know, but I’m up for any big fight that I deserve. My team is working on the next move. Thnx for the support, my fans!”
BetUS Boxing Show
If you missed the BetUS Boxing Show live at 1 p.m. ET on Friday on YouTube, please check out the replay (and also subscribe to the YouTube channel). We previewed and picked two Saturday fights: heavyweight Anthony Joshua’s return against Jermaine Franklin and Robeisy Ramirez against Isaac Dogboe for the vacant WBO featherweight title. We also took viewer questions and comments! Please check out the show here:
Quick hits
Weights from London for the Matchroom Boxing card Saturday on DAZN: Anthony Joshua 255.4 pounds, Jermaine Franklin 234.12; Fabio Wardley 242.6, Michael Coffie 269.4; Galal Yafai 113.8, Moises Calleros 114.2; Campbell Hatton 139.12, Louis Fiedling 138.6; Austin Williams 162.8, River Wilson-Bent 162.7; John Hedges 189.14, Daniel Bocianski 186.4; Ziyad Almaayouf 145.14, Georgi Velichkov 142.7; Jordan Flynn 129.1, Kane Baker 129.8; Juergen Uldedaj 203.8, vs. Benoit Huber 200; Peter Kadiru 239.3, Alen Lauriolle 273.2.
Weights from Tulsa, Okla., for Saturday’s Top Rank card on ESPN+: Robeisy Ramirez 125.6 pounds, Isaac Dogboe 124.6 (for vacant WBO featherweight title); Joet Gonzalez 126.2, Jose Enrique Vivas 126.2; Jahi Tucker 151.8, Nikoloz Sekhniashvili 150.2; Jeremiah Milton 255.8, Fabio Maldonado 215.8; Tiger Johnson 142.8, Alfonso Olvera 142.8; Dante Benjamin Jr. 175, Jasper McCargo 177.4; Emiliano Fernando Vargas 133, Edgar Uvalle 132.2; Abdullah Mason 135.2, Erick Garcia Benitez 135.4; Rohan Polanco 142.4, Ricardo Quiroz 142.6.
Weights from Milwaukee for Saturday’s Gamebred Boxing PPV card: Roy Jones Jr. 199.1 pounds, Anthony Pettis 198.5; Vitor Belfort 200.9, Ronaldo Souza 199.9; Jose Aldo 148, Jeremy Stephens 146.9; Luis Feliciano 143.5, Clarence Booth 144.8; Devin Cushing 131.6, Damian Marchiano 130; Pearl Gonzalez 125.7, Gina Mazany 126.5; Cecil Cleckler 248.5, Josh Burns 275.4.
Showtime will debut its two-part “All Access” series for the Gervonta Davis-Ryan Garcia fight on Saturday (10:35 p.m. ET). The episode will set the stage for one of the year’s biggest fights, which takes place on April 22 (Showtime PPV) at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. You watch a clip from the episode here:
Since the David Benavidez-Caleb Plant four-fight Showtime PPV card was strong last week, Showtime announced that it will do something rare — it will replay all four bouts. It will replay Benavidez’s exciting decision win over Plant to retain the WBC interim super middleweight title along with junior middleweight Jesus Ramos’ entertaining but one-sided seventh-round knockout of Joey Spencer on Saturday (11:05 p.m. ET/PT). The other two bouts, lightweight Chris Colbert’s highly controversial decision over Jose Valenzuela and welterweight Cody Crowley’s majority decision over Abel Ramos in an action-packed title eliminator, will replay April 12 on Showtime Extreme (10 p.m. ET/PT). All four fights will also be available via Showtime’s streaming and on-demand platforms beginning the day they air.
Zanfer Promotions won a WBC purse bid for the junior featherweight title eliminator between its fighter, David Picasso (24-0-1, 13 KOs), 22, of Mexico, and Ra’eese Aleem (20-0, 12 KOs), 32, of Las Vegas, who is affiliated with PBC, on Friday in Mexico City. Zanfer bid $200,500 to beat an offer of $157,500 from TGB Promotions, which promotes PBC events. The split is 50-50 with each man getting $90,225 but with 10 percent of the winning bid ($20,050) held by the WBC to go to the winner as a bonus. The winner becomes the WBC’s second mandatory challenger for Stephen Fulton, the WBC/WBO titlist. He has an optional defense against Naoya Inoue on July 25. The winner will owe the first WBC mandatory defense against former titlist Luis Nery and then the Aleem-Picasso winner.
The IBF has scheduled a purse bid for the fight between junior flyweight titlist Sivenathi Nontshinga (11-0, 9 KOs), 24, of South Africa — who won the vacant belt by action-packed decision against Hector Flores in September in the 2022 Fight Freaks Unite fight of the year — and mandatory challenger Regie Suganob (13-0, 4 KOs), 25, of the Philippines. The bid is scheduled for April 11 at 12 p.m. ET at the IBF offices in Springfield, New Jersey. The sides can make a deal until 15 minutes before the bids are unsealed. There is a non-refundable $5,000 participation fee.
There is a new co-feature for the “ShoBox” card on April 7 (Showtime, 10 p.m. ET/PT) at Cache Creek Casino in Brooks, California. Schenectady, New York, junior middleweight Jahyae Brown (13-0, 9 KOs), 23, will face Guido Schramm (15-1-1, 9 KOs), 27, of Argentina, in a 10-rounder. The bout replaces a junior lightweight fight between Neri Romero and Frency Fortunato that fell out due to a Romero injury, Showtime announced. In the main event, Queens, New York’s Shinard Bunch (20-1-1, 16 KOs) fights Mexico’s Bryan Flores (23-0-1, 13 KOs) in a 10-round junior welterweight bout and junior middleweight Raul Garcia (12-0, 10 KOs), of the Dominican Republic, faces Robert Terry (9-0, 3 KOs), of Jersey City, New Jersey, in the eight-round opener.
Show and tell
Since it’s an Anthony Joshua fight weekend, I went into the collection for something AJ-related. The British star had already unified the IBF and WBA heavyweight titles when he was matched with WBO titleholder and fellow unbeaten Joseph Parker in a three-belt unification fight. They met before a sold-out crowd of some 78,000 at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, where Joshua was making his fifth overall defense and Parker was making his third. Unfortunately, the fight did not live up to the hype and lacked any big moments, excitement or drama. Instead, Joshua soundly outpointed Parker, albeit by seemingly overly generous scores of 119-109, 118-110 and 118-110. Nonetheless, it was a big win for Joshua and it took place on March 31, 2018 — five years ago on Friday. The fight was back when Joshua was fighting regularly on Showtime and here is the network poster in my collection.
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Photos: Hearn/Catterall and Joshua-Franklin: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing; Ortiz: Cris Esqueda/Golden Boy; Ramirez-Dogboe: Mikey Williams/Top Rank; Jones-Pettis: Phil Lambert/Gamebred Boxing
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Good signings for Matchroom. It seems that DAZN/Hearn are wanting more events to take place in the UK and these signings are ideal for this.
More big fights happening in the UK means we won't have to stay up until 4am - 5am as many times - which is fine by me.