Friday, July 24th
TBD, 7:00 am ET Tyson Fury vs Mariusz Wach
From Pattaya, Thailand. No US broadcast or streaming announced yet, but our Scott Christ will be on the live coverage if and when someone picks it up. And, why wouldn’t they? Who wouldn’t want to see Tyson Fury throw his latest un-retirement in gentle reverse by taking on Wach, a man who lost to Arslanbek Makhmudov, the perceived soft touch return opponent Fury already beat three and a half months ago? Makhmudov knocked Wach out four and a half years ago…
Can Fury do it, too? And I don’t mean Hughie Fury, who only won a decision over Wach on two unanimous cards and one 9-1 card almost six years ago. Wach has a proud tradition of losing to UK based heavyweights (Moses Itauma, Frazer Clarke, Martin Bakole, Dillian Whyte) and heavyweights I always mistakenly misremember as based out of the UK but really aren’t (Kevin Lerena)… Can he keep the streak alive against Tyson? Keep your fingers crossed that someone pays for US rights so you and Scott can see LIVE answers to all those questions, plus: “What’s actually on this undercard, and how much do I regret waking up before sunrise to find out?”
Saturday, July 25th
Anthony Joshua vs Kristian Prenga (DAZN PPV/Ultimate, 9:00 am ET)
BLH will have live results and updates
From Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Joshua returns for the first time since fighting and breaking Jake Paul last December. Not long after that fight, Joshua was injured as a passenger in a car crash in Nigeria that killed his personal trainer and conditioning coach. He’ll face Prenga, a 35 year old Albanian working out of New Jersey, and holder of an impressive 20-1 record, with all 20 victories coming by knockout. But… The names on those knockouts are Willie Jake Jr and Joey Dawejko, not anyone even remotely close to Joshua’s level.
Betting odds strongly favor Joshua, as they should, but I hate this matchup a lot less than the Fury fight above. Joshua is coming off injury and personal loss, and has shown himself susceptible to getting caught by power punchers. Prenga certainly has power, and his only loss came by decision in his jump from four to eight-rounders, fighting in the Netherlands against a Dutch opponent. Prenga is getting the opportunity to show something about himself vs Joshua, while Wach has established his level clearly over the past decade as far below Tyson Fury. $59.99 on PPV if you don’t have Ultimate.
ON THE UNDERCARD: Hamzah Sheeraz defends his WBO super middleweight belt against Simon Zachenhuber. Josh Kelly defends the IBF super welterweight title he won from Bakhram Murtazaliev against Caoimhin Agyarko, in what could be the best matchup on the card. And Oleksandr Khyzhniak fights for the 2nd time as a pro, so absolutely do not miss the opener on the main card. I can’t imagine they’d waste him on the prelims, and he’s a must-see until proven otherwise.
Errol Spence Jr vs Tim Tszyu (DAZN PPV/Ultimate and Prime Video PPV, 9:00 pm ET)
BLH will have live results and updates
From Sydney Olympic Park in Australia, and the PPV is $79.99 American if you’re not getting it as part of your DAZN package. This one’s at middleweight, a two division jump for Spence, who fights for the first time since his undressing by Terence Crawford three years ago. Tszyu has been at middleweight his last two fights against Anthony Velasquez and Denis Nurja, with a few pounds to spare below the 160 limit.
The hater’s case here is that Spence hasn’t been the same since his car crash in October of 2019. He’s had multiple eye surgeries since then, and he’s spent three years on the shelf, even through the initial firehose of Saudi money blasted at anyone with a remotely marketable name in the earliest days of their takeover of the sport. Meanwhile, Tszyu’s punch resistance seems to have abandoned him somewhere around his 30th birthday and a series of blood-and-guts slugfests with Sebastian Fundora and Bakhram Murtazaliev.
But… The optimist in me knows that Tim Tszyu has a tremendous fighting spirit and obviously still has his whole heart in this move up in weight. And Spence could easily have taken a nice little financial care package to fight a no-hoper and bring some name value to a PBC undercard (as we call it: a “Charlo special”) at any point since the Crawford loss. But, he never did! Instead, he’s jumping straight back in against a hard hitter that’s bedeviled plenty of quality fighters, and traveling to Tszyu’s home turf to do it. Granted, this main event may end up looking more washed than the outbound loading dock of an industrial laundry… But, I’m sort of eager to see how it plays out anyway?
ON THE UNDERCARD: A super featherweight showdown between Stephen Fulton and Liam Wilson, but no Jermall Charlo, who couldn’t get a visa to enter the country. Callum Peters will appear, though, taking on undefeated, hard-hitting, little-known Argentine (uh oh…) Ivan Ricardo Actis, fighting outside of Argentina for the first time as a pro. True degenerates know all those descriptors are like slowly rising string music in a seemingly innocuous horror movie scene.
Sunday, July 26th
Paramount+, 4:30 pm ET Zuffa Boxing 9
From the Madison Square Garden basement in New York City. Main event is Edgar Berlanga vs Steven Butler, which presumably means there’s a hole in the schedule for boxing night at that Montreal dinner theater in the near future. Richardson Hitchins also appears in the chief support, with Sergiy Derevyanchenko and Otto Wallin appearing deeper on the undercard.
