Yunier Dorticos 199 vs. Dmitry Kudryashov 200
Lateef Kayode 197.75 vs. Keith Tapia 197.5
Nonito Donaire 125.5 vs. Ruben Garcia Hernandez 126
Fight week in San Antonio officially kicked-off as Yunier Dorticos and Dmitry Kudryashov went face-to-face Wednesday at the final press conference before their Saturday, September 23 World Boxing Super Series cruiserweight quarterfinal showdown taking place at the Alamodome.
The Yunier Dorticos vs. Dmitry Kudryashov & Joseph Parker vs. Hughie Fury standout in a busy boxing weekend that includes cards on ESPN, HBO, YouTube, and a variety of available (legal) streams.
Let’s begin this preview and predictions piece with another installment of the Top Rank on ESPN series. The televised tripleheader opens up with Micheal Conlan and is headlined by Oscar Valdez’s making a mandatory defense of his 126 pound WBO belt. Let’s hope the main event is at least entertaining style-wise and that Conlan puts on show. The best matchup on paper is Gilberto Ramirez (35-0) vs. Jessie Hart (22-0) in the co-feature.
With World Boxing Super Series action officially underway following Oleksandr Usyk’s 10th-round stoppage of Marco Huck Saturday in Germany, cruiserweight sluggers Yunier Dorticos and Dmitry Kudryashov offered training camp updates ahead of their highly anticipated quarter-final showdown taking place Saturday, September 23 from the Alamodome in San Antonio. The WBA cruiserweight titleholder, “The KO Doctor” Dorticos has been hard at work at the Freestyle Fighting Academy in Miami as he prepares for the matchup that many are calling the best fight of the tournament.
Between them, cruiserweight bangers Dmitriy Kudryashov and Yunier Dorticos have 41 KO’s. Russia’s Kudryashov, 21-1(21) has displayed brutal power in both hands, Cuba’s Dorticos, 21-0(20) has never lost a fight. Together, the two 200 pounders will almost certainly give us an explosion of an exciting fight when they hook up on September 23 at The Alamodome in San Antonio.
Meeting up in a battle that is part of the fascinating World Boxing Super Series tournament, the sluggers with the combined 42-1 record (Kudryashov losing once, to Olanrewaju Durodola, later avenging the stoppage loss with one of his own) will contest the WBA belt. As potentially thrilling as this fight is, it’s also a pretty tough one to pick.
This week’s schedule is packed so tight with cruiserweight bouts that some good ones will probably be overlooked. Tonight’s card in Moscow which was supposed to be headlined by the heavyweight showdown between Deontay Wilder and Alexander Povetkin will go on with three cruiserweight bouts now headlined by Denis Lebedev. Beibut Shumenov will fight Junior Wright in Las Vegas with the WBA title at stake. There were two other interesting fights in the same weight class preceding the mainstream shows that deserve to be mentioned and were well worth watching.