Vargas-Martinez, Cruz-Felix Jr, Zewski-Toliver and promotional content on Special ESPN 2 FNF for Thursday.
By Corey Quincy
Thursday Live on a Special edition of the ESPN 2 Boxing Series ” Friday Night Fights ” at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. We will see Top Rank Prospects Jessie Vargas and Aaron Martinez face off in the main event. The event is being labeled as the Pre-Show to the big fight Saturday between Lineal Champion Sergio ” Maravilla ” Martinez and the son of a legend WBC titleholder Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. So expect tons of promotional content. Actually it was already announced they will have both of the HBO 24/7s as part of a multi-year promotional deal with HBO.
These fights will have respectable action with these prospects going on and this event is worth watching as a good appetizer for the big action this weekend. Plus it is also the final FNF until next season, which is not until a date to-be-determined in early Jan. 2013.
In the Co-featured bout of the evening you will see the one-beaten but more known Puerto Rican Prospect Luis Cruz ( 20-1-0 ) face off against undefeated Mexican Jose Felix Jr in an interesting bout. Cruz, 26 years of age, has beaten way tougher opposition, and has been featured on major shows many times. You may recall him from the Pacquiao-Marquez 3 PPV where he was decisioned by top contender Juan Carlos Burgos who pointed out some issues he had as a fighter but Burgos was well experienced and talented while Felix Jr ( 16-0-0 ) is more green then him and from what I know can not really match him in much assets. Really with Cruz’s power I pick him to win but as always you must look out, Unknown + Undefeated = Danger. Again though I think Cruz’s power and world level experience might edge him out here seeing as his best win is to a top contender in Martin Hilorio and Felix’s best win is to an unknown 12-3-0 journeyman and other then that 90% ( 18/20 ) of his other opponents had loosing records. Cruz is way more seasoned clearly and even with his own issues Burgosexposed he should be good enough to win. In this case I pick Cruz by TKO Late.
In swing bouts we will see Canadian Mikael Zewski and Terence Crawford in action. Both top prospects in the Top Rank Boxing stable. Zewski ( 15-0-0 ) one of my favorite prospects from Canada faces fringe contender Xavier Toliver ( 23-8-0 ), and Crawford ( 17-0-0 ) gets it even easier against journeyman Hardy Paredes ( 15-10-0 ). Of course in my opinion it is almost certain Zewski and Crawford, Both talented prospects will walk through these guys but this is boxing, terms like can and bum shouldn’t be used, every fighter is a warrior with a chance. Upsets can happen always. So Zewski and Crawford better and likely will be well prepared and should win.
In the main attraction of this night of fights we will see the highly publicitized Jessie Vargas ( 19-0-0, 9 Ko’s ) fight in his Top Rank Boxing debut against Aaron Martinez ( 18-1,-0, 4 Ko’s ). Vargas is a pretty well skilled boxer-puncher built out of the Mayweather Promotions gym until recently he switched to Top Rank for his own reasons and is working well to continue his career with a possibly more developed promotional agency with many options avalible to fit him. Martinez on the other hand is a very tough come forward fighter who became more known to USA fans when he fought on ESPN last time where he won a close decision to Prenice Brewer. In his bout with Brewer he proved to me he has a lot of energy and heart coming forward at the boxer, who was trying to throw small shots while on the move. If Martinez fights smart and stays on Vargas’s case, I can very possibly visualize that here. But with his 20-0 on the line, a big fight on ESPN spotlight plus a new big promoter watching to see how he does Vargas will be at his best I assume. Overall this is an excellent fight to test two young fighters. This is pretty hard to make a pick but I’ll go with Vargas Close Decision. Martinez doesn’t have the power to bother him but if he keeps coming he may win it. We will see.
Corey Quincy is a writer for Boxinglegends ( Blboxing.co.cc ) and Real Combat Media. Like him on facebook at Boxing Legends, Or follow on Twitter at Quincyboxingfan.
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