Notebook: Haney, Lomachenko to meet May 20 on PPV, per sources
Valdez to return in co-feature; middleweight title intrigue; talks ongoing for Prograis-Catterall; Quick hits; Show and tell
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After Vasiliy Lomachenko outpointed Jamaine Ortiz on Oct. 29 in New York in a fight much tougher than anyone expected, ringside observer and undisputed lightweight world champion Devin Haney joined Loma in the ring during his post-fight television interview.
They showed respect for one another and each sized up the other man for the fight that was expected to be next. And that will indeed be the case.
Haney will defend the undisputed crown against Lomachenko, the former unified champion and mandatory challenger, on May 20 in the main event of a Top Rank Boxing on ESPN+ PPV card at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, multiple sources with knowledge of the deal told Fight Freaks Unite. It will mark the first pay-per-view main event for both fighters.
Top Rank has not yet formally announced the fight but the deal is done, various sources involved in the event said. May 20 was the date all along but there were questions about where the bout would take place — Haney was looking to drum up interest in a site deal in the Middle East that never came — and whether it would air as a pay-per-view or on linear television.
After Haney and Lomachenko met in the ring after Loma’s October victory, Top Rank chairman Bob Arum said it was the fight he wanted to make.
“We will do everything we can to make the undisputed championship showdown that all fight fans want to see,” Arum said at the time. “They are the world’s premier lightweights, and it would be a fantastic battle.”
Haney (29-0, 15 KOs), 24, of Las Vegas, traveled to Melbourne, Australia in June to meet unified champion George Kambosos Jr. in a unification fight and won a lopsided decision to become the first undisputed 135-pound champion of the four-belt era and the first undisputed champion in the division since the late Hall of Famer Pernell Whitaker accomplished the feat by unifying the three major titles in 1990.
Haney was a replacement opponent in the fight for Lomachenko, who had bowed out in order to remain at home in Ukraine as part of a territorial defense battalion fighting the Russian invasion.
In October, Haney returned to Melbourne and easily outpointed Kambosos again after he invoked his right to an immediate rematch. Two weeks later Lomachenko (17-2, 11 KOs), a 35-year-old southpaw, two-time Olympic gold medalist and the former pound-for-pound king, returned from a 10 month layoff to defeat Ortiz.
Valdez returns on undercard
Former junior lightweight and featherweight titlist Oscar Valdez will return from injury to face an opponent to be determined in the 10-round co-feature of the Haney-Lomachenko pay-per-view, multiple sources told Fight Freaks Unite.
After Valdez (30-1, 23 KOs), 32, of Mexico, lost a lopsided decision in a junior lightweight unification fight with Shakur Stevenson last April, also at the MGM Grand, he was due to return in the fall but took the rest of the year off after he slipped on wet steps and injured his back and broke a rib.
He was then scheduled to face Emmanuel Navarrete for the vacant WBO 130-pound title on Feb. 3 in Glendale, Arizona, but when he went back into training for the fight he broke the rib again in a sparring session.
Former junior featherweight and featherweight titlist Navarrete instead faced Liam Wilson for the vacant title and knocked him out in the ninth round of an action-packed fight of the year contender in which they were both knocked down. Valdez watched from ringside knowing that as long as Navarrete (37-1, 31 KOs) won he would face his Mexican countryman later this year for the title.
But first Valdez will have the fight — and need to win — on the Haney-Lomachenko undercard so he won’t go into that expected summer bout coming off a more than one-year layoff.
Middleweight madness
The IBF purse bid for its vacant middleweight title fight between Esquiva Falcao and Michael Zerafa scheduled for Tuesday was canceled, but not because the sides made a deal.
Zerafa manager Elvis Grant Phillips notified the IBF in a pointed letter on Monday that Zerafa was pulling out. What he did not mention in the letter was that Zerafa would instead challenge for the WBA title.
Phillips said the IBF notified him last week that Carl Moretti of Top Rank, Falcao’s promoter, had agreed to a request for a seven-day extension while Phillips was talking to promoters about backing a bid but that he never received official confirmation from the IBF about the extension.
He said he was surprised to learn only on Monday that the purse bid was still scheduled and claimed Moretti “reneged” on agreeing to move it to March 21.
“Given these unfortunate circumstances, the interested parties that I have been in discussions with regarding the purse bid which was supposed to take place on March 21st after prior agreement by Mr. Moretti, I must inform you that Mr. Zerafa has decided to pursue other options and will no longer fight for the IBF middleweight title against Mr. Falcao,” Phillips wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Fight Freaks Unite.
“On behalf of myself and Team Zerafa, thank you for giving us the opportunity to fight for the IBF middleweight title. I sincerely hoped that after many years of cooperation and mutual respect we’ve shared, someone would have given me the courtesy of not waiting until the day before a retracted purse bid to inform me of what should have been addressed at least one week prior. This breakdown in communication at the IBF is unfortunate to say the least.”
The “other options” Phillips said Zerafa would pursue is a shot at the WBA title, which now belongs solely to Erislandy Lara. He became the lone titleholder in the organization when Gennadiy Golovkin vacated the “super” title rather than go to a purse bid for a mandatory fight with then-“regular” titlist Lara.
With Golovkin out of the picture, Lara (29-3-3, 17 KOs), 39, a Cuban southpaw fighting out of Houston, is still required to do a mandatory defense, which will be against Zerafa (31-4, 19 KOs), 30, of Australia, the WBA’s No. 1-ranked middleweight, who has won four fights in a row since a majority 10-round decision loss to former welterweight titlist Jeff Horn in December 2019 in a rematch of a previous victory.
Zerafa wrote WBA president Gilberto Mendoza a letter on Friday seeking the title opportunity.
“It would be an honor for me to fight for your middleweight championship. … Having my hand raised as your champion has been my dream ever since I started fighting professionally,” Zerafa wrote. “On behalf of Team Zerafa, please accept my sincere gratitude for giving me this wonderful opportunity. It is my hope that I can follow in the footsteps of the many great WBA champions that came before me.”
And on Monday, as Zerafa’s IBF title opportunity was falling apart, the WBA notified Lara and Zerafa that they were ordered to fight next. The WBA gave them 30 days (until April 13) to make a deal or a purse bid will be scheduled. The purse bid split will be 75-25 in Lara’s favor.
Quick hits
Disrupt Promotions, the new promoter of WBC junior welterweight titlist Regis Prograis (28-1, 24 KOs), 34, a southpaw from New Orleans, after taking over his contract after buying assets from the now-defunct Probellum Promotions, is talking with Jack Catterall promoter Boxxer about matching them this spring, a source with knowledge of the talks told Fight Freaks Unite. Catterall (26-1, 13 KOs), a 29-year-old British southpaw, was due to meet WBO and lineal champion Josh Taylor on March 4 but the fight was canceled after Taylor suffered a foot injury. Prograis, a two-time titlist, claimed the vacant WBC belt via 11th-round knockout of Jose Zepeda in November. One critical issue in making the fight is that Disrupt has no broadcast deal, although Boxxer has a deal with Sky Sports in the United Kingdom.
Top Rank announced that an unspecified training injury has knocked heavyweight prospect Richard Torrez Jr. (5-0, 5 KOs), 23, the 2020 U.S. Olympic super heavyweight silver medalist from Tulare, California, out of his six-round ESPN-televised opener against Willie Jake Jr. (11-3-2, 3 KOs) on March 25 (ESPN/ESPN Deportes/ESPN+, 10 p.m. ET). A source with knowledge of the injury told Fight Freaks Unite that Torrez suffered a torn oblique. Top Rank added in its announcement that Torrez will return this summer. Former unified junior welterweight titlist Jose Ramirez faces former lightweight titlist Richard Commey in the main event at Save Mart Center in Fresno, California, the home region of Ramirez and Torrez. Seniesa Estrada and Tina Rupprecht meet to unify their women’s junior flyweight titles in the co-feature.
The 10-round heavyweight fight between Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller (25-0-1, 20 KOs), 34, of Brooklyn, New York, and Lucas Browne (31-3, 27 KOs), 43, of Australia, on Saturday at Agenda Arena in Dubai will stream live in the U.S. and Australia via ProBoxTV as part of its $18 annual subscription fee. Miller and Browne both have had major issues with positive drug tests for banned substances but Miller has won two fights in a row since returning from a 3½-year layoff due to his positive drug tests. Browne rejuvenated his career with an upset first-round knockout of Junior Fa in June on the George Kambosos-Devin Haney I undercard. Junior lightweights Jono Carroll (23-2-1, 7 KOs), 30, of Ireland, and fellow former world title challenger Miguel Marriaga (30-6, 26 KOs), 36, of Colombia, will meet in the 10-round co-feature.
The IBF scheduled a purse bid for the flyweight final title eliminator between Nicaraguan countrymen Cristofer Rosales (35-6, 21 KOs), 28, a former WBC flyweight titlist, and former IBF junior flyweight titlist Felix Alvarado (38-3, 33 KOs), 34. The purse bid is scheduled for March 23 at the IBF offices in Springfield, New Jersey, and via videoconference. If the sides don’t make a deal — they have until 15 minutes before bids are unsealed — each fighter is entitled to 50 percent of the winning bid. The winner will be the mandatory challenger for titlist Sunny Edwards (19-0, 4 KOs), 27, of England, who outpointed Alvarado in his last fight in November.
Show and tell
It’s no secret that other than the late Arturo Gatti, former lightweight and unified junior lightweight champion Acelino “Popo” Freitas is my favorite fighter, so much so that one of our family cats was named Popo in his honor. Freitas was a charismatic and electrifying puncher and one of the best fighters ever from Brazil. His biggest win was a close but well-deserved unanimous decision (114-112 on all three cards) over a peak Joel Casamayor to unify the WBO and WBA junior lightweight titles in a major fight on Showtime, which had Freitas under contract.
Two fights later, the prime Freitas defended the 130-pound belts against Mexican contender Juan Carlos “Ranchero” Ramirez in Chicago. Ramirez was credited with knocking Freitas down in the second round — it was more of a slip — and Freitas scored two knockdowns in the third before battering him into a fourth-round stoppage to retain the titles and move to 33-0 with 30 KOs. Afterward, Freitas broke down in the ring as he dedicated the win to his father, who had recently died. The fight was on March 15, 2003 — 20 years ago on Wednesday. Here is a beautiful glossy site poster in my collection.
Haney-Lomachenko and Valdez photos: Mikey Williams/Top Rank
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The charismatic, but soon to be 31 years old Seniesa Estrada’s career is in desperate need of a legitimate rival. Mayer found Baumgardner, Shields & Marshall, Taylor & Serrano. Marlén Esparza doesn’t move the needle. Maybe Rupprecht, but better yet Yokasta Valle can add some drama to Seniesa’s dominion. Because right now she feels a bit like an afterthought.
Seems surprising that loma and Haney went to PPV, seems like a stretch but was Haney needing too much?