On Saturday, November 28th, boxing will perform a rare “hat trick”. Premier Boxing Champions will start off the day from Dallas, Texas with a double-header live on NBC. First up will be rising star, Errol Spence, Jr. With a record of 18-0 and 15 KOs, Spence has been proving himself as a PBC regular. The Desoto, Texas native will take on Alejandro Barrera (28-2, 18 KOs) in a welterweight matchup. Following that, Houston, Texas resident and current IBF Jr. Middleweight Champion, Jermall Charlo (22-0, 17 KOs) looks to make the first defense of the title he won in a spectacular performance against a former star of the hit series “The Contender”, Cornelius “K-9” Bundrage. Charlo will be facing off against Haitian-born “Silky” Wilky Campfort (21-1, 12 KOs), who now makes his home in Fort Lauderdale (gotta love the name).
From there, we move on to an early event on HBO from Dusseldorf, Germany, where Wladimir Klitschko (64-3, 53 KOs) looks to make history as one of the sport’s longest-reigning Heavyweight Champions of all time, as he now sits 2 wins behind Larry Holmes and 7 behind Joe Louis. Klitschko has a tough test in front of him today, however, as he will be attempting to make his defense against undefeated Tyson Fury (24-0, 18 KOs), who will be the larger man in the ring. Fury stands at 6’9″ and will benefit from a height, reach, and weight advantage during the fight, as well as being 12 years younger than the current champ. Fury has a few impressive wins on his record, including the likes of Dereck Chisora (twice), “U.S.S.” Steve Cunningham, Christian Hammer, Vinny Maddalone, and Nikolai Firtha. However, Klitschko clearly brings a much better resume, having wins over many of the sports biggest and strongest fighters. Klitschko has lost only twice since 1998, and you would have to go back to April 10, 2004 to find the last of them. On that date, Lamon Brewster stopped Klitschko after 5 rounds to win the WBO belt. However, on July 7, 2007, Wladimir avenged that loss while defending the IBF belt.
Finally, the sweet science takes you to Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, where Showtime brings you another loaded fight card. In the co-main event, The Fighting News’ candidate for “Fighter of the Year”, Amir “Young Master” Imam (18-0, 15 KOs) will be stepping in the ring against Adrian “Tigre” Granados (16-4-2, 11 KOs) for a meaningful Jr. Welterweight bout. If Imam can win impressively, he will surely get his title shot early next year. The anticipated opponent is current WBC champ, Viktor “The Iceman” Postol (28-0, 12 KOs) who viciously beat down and knocked out an unexpecting Lucas Matthysse (37-4, 34 KOs) back in October of this year. In the main event, newly-crowned IBF Super Middleweight Champion, James “Chunky” DeGale (21-1, 14 KOs) will be taking on his biggest opponent yet. He will square off against former IBF Super Middleweight Champion and local Canadian superstar, Lucian “Le Tombeur” Bute (32-2, 25 KOs), who made 9 successful defenses of the belt over a span of 5 years before running into future Hall-of-Famer, Carl Froch (33-2, 24 KOs) back in 2012. DeGale won a unanimous decision over Andre “The Resurrected” Dirrell (24-2, 16 KOs) on May 23, 2015 for the IBF Super Middleweight belt, which had been vacated by Froch for failing to defend it within the mandatory year. On that date, London-bred James DeGale became the very first British Olympic Gold Medalist to win a world title.
Michael J. Feinberg
The Fighting News Reporter
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