A few notes from around the boxing world:
- Rising middleweight Rob “Bravo” Brant, who has impressed in fights on Showtime’s “ShoBox” series, will headline a CBS Sports Net-televised quadrupleheader on Friday night (11 ET) at the Pechanga Resort and Casino in Temecula, California, promoter Greg Cohen announced. Brant (20-0, 13 KOs), 25, of Saint Paul, Minnesota, will face Cleveland’s Chris Fitzpatrick (15-4, 6 KOs), 29, who has lost three fights in a row, in a 10-rounder. In the co-feature, junior middleweight Skender Halili (10-1, 10 KOs), 25, of Fort Worth, Texas, will take on Silver Springs, Maryland-based Ghana native Ben Odamattey (16-14-3, 9 KOs), 36, in a six-rounder. The two other televised bout will be Germany’s Cem Kilic (5-0, 2 KOs), 22, now based in Sherman Oaks, California, against Las Vegas’ Jerhed Fenderson (0-0) in a four-round middleweight fight and 20-year-old Baltimore welterweight prospect Malik Hawkins (8-0, 7 KOs) against Sean Gee (3-4, 0 KOs), 28, of Portland, Oregon.
“Rob Brant will be in against a guy who will take you out if you don’t have the goods,” Cohen said. “Skender Halili’s last fight was one of the best of the year, so I look forward to another slugfest. Cem Kilic won’t have it easy. Although his opponent is making his debut, he can really fight. And we all get another look at the amazing talent of Malik Hawkins to open the night.”
- If you missed Saturday night’s sensational fight of the year candidate between Carl Frampton and Leo Santa Cruz, Showtime Extreme will replay the bout on Monday night (11 ET/PT). Frampton won a majority decision to win a featherweight world title in an action-packed bout at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The other two fights from the tripleheader will also be replayed: junior welterweight Mikey Garcia’s ring return following a 2½-year layoff to knock out Elio Rojas in the fifth round and junior middleweight contender Tony Harrison’s ninth-round knockout Sergey Rabchenko in a title eliminator.
- Powerful junior lightweight southpaw prospect Alberto Machado (14-0, 12 KOs), 25, of Puerto Rico, will take on Mexico’s Yardley Suarez (17-4, 9 KOs), 22, in the eight-round main event of promoter Miguel Cotto’s card on Saturday at the Cosme Beitia Coliseum in Cataño, Puerto Rico. Machado has knocked out nine foes in a row. “We are working in the gym to get ready to decipher any style that he brings and see if that knockout streak continues,” Machado said.
Cotto, the Puerto Rican star and the only four-division titleholder from his country, and Cotto Promotions’ Bryan Perez are high on Machado. “He’s very heavy handed and he’s been destroying everybody,” Perez said. “It’s surprised us. We want him to develop and have been giving him good opposition but he destroys guys.”
- Junior bantamweight contender Rex Tso (19-0, 12 KOs), 29, of Hong Kong, will face Ryuto Maekawa (11-0-1, 7 KOs), 20, of Japan, on Oct. 8 in the main event of a Top Rank-DEF Promotions card in Hong Kong that is part of the FIA Formula E Hong Kong ePrix car race weekend.
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