Thurman vs Porter, Joshua vs Breazeale, more: Boxing fight times and TV schedule for June 24-25

Friday, June 24

CCTV-5 (CHN), 7:00 a.m. ET, Javier Fortuna vs Jason Sosa, Jun Qiu Xiao vs Nehomar Cermeno. I’ll have a more exact start time for this once CCTV’s schedule for Friday comes up, but for now I’m ballparking it. Anyway, unless there’s a stream of this, we won’t have live coverage or anything, but it’s a notable fight at 130 pounds. Fortuna is fighting to be considered the potential new top fighter in the division, while Sosa gets a second big chance after he was gifted a draw against Nicholas Walters last year. Xiao-Cermeno is for the vacant WBA “world” super bantamweight title, which does not need to exist. The WBA says they want to clean up their title issues, where there are sometimes three “champions” in the same division under their banner. Right now, Guillermo Rigondeaux is “super” champion, and Moises Flores is “interim” champion. That’s enough; it even makes sense, almost. But the WBA “world” title doesn’t currently exist, doesn’t need to exist, and they’re doing it anyway. BLH may have live coverage.

Telemundo, 11:35 p.m. ET, Ricardo Rodriguez vs David Quijano. Your typical Telemundo card. You can watch this and tell yourself it’s a great way of spending your time, but it’s not, really.

Saturday, June 25

SHO / Sky Box Office (UK), 3:00 p.m. ET, Anthony Joshua vs Dominic Breazeale, George Groves vs Martin Murray, Chris Eubank Jr vs Tom Doran, John Wayne Hibbert vs Andrea Scarpa. The Showtime broadcast in the U.S. will start at 5:15 p.m. ET. Let’s not be coy here: Joshua is almost certainly going to smash Breazeale in short order. Breazeale is just not on Joshua’s level, even though they have nearly identical pro records. The only hope Breazeale has is landing one big shot and finishing Joshua before Joshua can get to him. So at the very least, this is not going to drag out for 12 rounds. Groves-Murray is a pivotal fight for both men, pretty much must-win if they want to stay in the race at 168. Eubank returns against a guy he should easily beat, defending his British middleweight belt. Dillian Whyte and Conor Benn are also scheduled for action. BLH will have live coverage.

CBS, 9:00 p.m. ET, Keith Thurman vs Shawn Porter. This fight was supposed to happen in March, but it was postponed. Now it’s finally here. Really one of the more highly-anticipated fights of 2016 to date, this is a fight where the winner is going to claim to be the new leader in the welterweight division. This was a really good doubleheader when Cuellar-Mares was still part of the show, but the main event alone is worth tuning in to see. Something will serve as co-feature, and there are a lot of good prospects on the card already. BLH will have live coverage.

UniMás, 11:00 p.m. ET, Mike Alvarado vs Josh Torres, Matt Korobov vs Bryan Vera. Alvarado takes his second tune-up fight of 2016, after beating Saul Corral on March 19 in Houston. This time he’s in Dallas against a fighter of roughly the same quality. There was some rust on Alvarado in March, and the fact that he’s 35 and has taken some licks over the years isn’t helping him in his quest to become a contender again, now at 147 pounds. But his only path to doing that is fighting and winning, and they’re taking incremental steps. Bob Arum has mentioned him for possible bigger fights by the end of 2016, but we’ll see. Korobov, 33, is one of the most disappointing hyped prospects of recent times, even though he’s only lost once. His snail’s pace prospect years ultimately didn’t lead to much, and now he’s back in eight-rounders against club fighters after his 2014 loss to Andy Lee. Vera was once a formidable gatekeeper, but he’s lost four straight since 2013, even though the first of those should have been a win over Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. We’re going to do live coverage for this one — basically, had to pick this or the NBCSN card below, and I’m going with this one since it’s more likely we’ll see Alvarado and/or Korobov in notable fights by the end of this year. BLH will have live coverage.

NBC Sports Network, 11:00 p.m. ET, Justin DeLoach vs Junior Castillo, Ryan Karl vs Luis Solis. DeLoach is a junior middleweight prospect who has already lost once, getting stopped in February 2015 by Cesar Vila, a real upset. But he’s bounced back well since then, going 4-0, and at 22 there’s time to make up for that loss easily. Castillo is a prospect, sort of, in that he’s 10-0 (9 KO) and surprised with a win over Kyrone Davis (UD-8) his last time out on April 19, but he’s also 30 years old. If he wins here, though, certainly will have to pay attention to him going forward, even if just in the short term, and even if just fight by fight. Ryan Karl, nicknamed “Cowboy,” is a 24-year-old junior welterweight out of Houston who is really all action, great fun to watch. He’s taking a small step up in competition here. This isn’t a bad show at all, it’s perfectly reasonable for an 11 pm start on NBCSN. It’s there for the diehards.