Matchroom Boxing held its inaugural press conference for th November 10th battle between unified cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk and challenger Tony Bellew, which you can watch below. In addition to the standard chatter from both camps, Eddie Hearn revealed the undercard lineup:
- Anthony Crolla vs. Daud Yordan in a final eliminator for the WBA lightweight belt, currently held by Vasyl Lomachenko.
- Ryan Walsh rematching Isaac Lowe for the former’s British featherweight belt. The two fought to a majority draw in February.
- Joe Cordina defending his Commonwealth lightweight title against Scott Cardle.
Crolla (33-6-3, 13 KO) vs. Yordan (38-3, 26 KO) seems a strange choice for an eliminator, but the two are actually ranked #4 and #2 by the WBA, whose title Crolla knocked out Darleys Perez to win and knocked out Ismael Barroso to defend. Yordan, surprisingly only 31 years old, is coming off an upset knockout of unbeaten Pavel Malikov and has won eight straight over decent competition since a one-sided loss to Simpiwe Vetyeka in 2013.
Neither of them stand a snowball’s chance in Hell against Lomachenko, but neither do 99.9% of fighters under 140 pounds.
Walsh (22-2-2, 11 KO) has held the British belt since a 2015 split decision over Samir Mouneimne. He did lose to Dennis Ceylan two fights back in a bid for the European belt, but kept his title. Lowe (15-0-3, 5 KO) drew with Ryan Doyle and Ceylan before doing the same against Walsh.
Cordina (8-0, 6 KO) will be making the first defense of his title, which he won with a decision over Sean Dodd last month. Cardle (23-2-1, 7 KO) just beat a guy who was 8-51-1 after getting stopped by Lewis Ritson.
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