What: Oleksandr Gvozdyk vs. Doudou Ngumbu, Light Heavyweights
When: March 30How to Watch: ESPN 10 p.m. ET
Why You Should Care: To see if Gvozdyk is the same ruthless fighter he once was, one fight removed from what he did to Adonis Stevenson.
Teddy Atlas, hailing from the Cus D’Amato school of boxing training, has undoubtedly been filling former Ukrainian Olympic bronze medalist and WBC light heavyweight champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk’s head with all sorts of motivational philosophies and historical anecdotes. But, there’s no amount of philosophizing that a boxing trainer can do when a fighter permanently alters another man’s life inside the ring.
That’s what Oleksandr Gvozdyk did in his last fight, he beat Adonis Stevenson into a coma and almost killed him and permanently altered him. While Stevenson survived, we’ve seen guys that seriously hurt opponents in the ring never be the same, a fact Gvozdyk’s promoter Bob Arum acknowledged this when he told the Los Angeles Times,
“I remember Gabriel Ruelas after the fatality” of Colombia’s Jimmy Garcia in 1995, “saying he saw the ghost of the Colombian every time he walked to the ring afterward, and Ray Mancini was never the same” following the 1982 death of South Korea’s Duk Koo Kim.
While Gvozdyk has claimed it won’t affect him, there’s only one way to find out. Doudou Ngumbu has only been stopped once in his career, while Gvozdyk has stopped 13 of his 16 opponents. Gvozdyk should be good enough to stop Ngumbu, if he still has the same (for lack of any other way to phrase it) killer instincts he used to.
What: Egidijus Kavaliauskas vs. Ray Robinson, Welterweights
When: March 30How to Watch: ESPN 10 p.m. ET
Why You Should Care: To see if “Mean Machine” can go to Philadelphia and give Bob Arum cover for having him fight Terence Crawford.
This week, Bob Arum tweeted “@ErrolSpenceJr said that he is ready to fight @terencecrawford. We are ready to do that next, once Bud is successful against @amirkingkhan on April 20. It’s what fight fans want. Al, should I call you or will you call me? @premierboxing.”
It would be great if Arum actually wanted Spence to fight Crawford after Crawford KO’s Amir Khan, however pretty much everyone thinks this is a lie and Arum is only teasing that fight to promote Khan-Crawford. The fight we know Arum has wanted for a long time is Egidijus “Mean Machine” Kavaliauskas versus “Bud” Crawford.
If “Mean Machine” travels to Ray Robinson’s hometown of Philadelphia and knocks him out in impressive fashion then Arum can claim talks fell through with Spence, they’re ducking Crawford, and make the “Mean Machine” Crawford fight like he wants. But, if “The New” Ray Robinson (who is 24-3 while the real Ray Robinson was 128-1 in his prime, so no, not at all) looks good against him, a Crawford fight will be unjustifiable.
Whether that would make Crawford-Spence a more realistic option is unclear. So, while boxing fan might not be certain who they should be rooting for, it’s clear for whom Bob Arum will be.
What: Liam Smith vs. Sam Eggington, Junior Middleweights
When: March 30How to Watch: DAZN 3 p.m. ET
Why You Should Care: To see if Liam Smith can ever become anything more than a 154-pound gatekeeper.
How quickly can you beat Liam “Beefy” Smith? That’s unfortunately what the 26-2 junior middleweight from Liverpool’s career has become. Canelo Alvarez stopped Smith in the ninth round, then Jaime Munguia tried his hardest to one-up Canelo but had to settle for a unanimous decision victory. The unfortunate truth is that Liam Smith has become a stop-watch stepping stone for anyone that wants to become a champion at 154 lbs. Worse for Smith, he needs to win on Saturday to even maintain that status.
Sam Eggington is struggling far worse than that. He is 24-5, 3-2 in his last five fights, and has never fought anyone with the prestige of Liam Smith. Eggington needs to beat Smith just to maintain a sliver of relevance in the 154-pound division.
Liam Smith wants to be more than the guy everyone tries to beat as quickly as they can to show they’re the real deal at 154, but to get to even that level again, he needs a win on Saturday night. We’ll see if he can.
What: Anthony Fowler vs. Scott Fitzgerald, Junior Middleweights
When: March 30How to Watch: DAZN 3 p.m. ET
Why You Should Care: To see which fighter reaches to their past to pull out the victory.
Scott Fitzgerald is 12-0 with nine knockouts, while Anthony Fowler is 9-0 with eight knockouts. Both men hail from the UK, and both men won gold medals at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Now, the two fighters living almost parallel lives will meet to decide which fighter is the better professional.
But, the two men have fought before. Anthony Fowler beat Fitzgerald as an amateur, and claims that even with the bigger amateur gloves on, “the ref saved him.” Fowler is claiming Fitzgerald is scared of him because of this past event, and that this time around will be no different than was the case eleven years ago.
Scott Fitzgerald is also clinging to his past to try and win this fight. In an attempt to get back to what he thinks first made him great, Scott Fitzgerald went back to his boyhood gym, boyhood trainer, and hometown.
A wise man with a similar name once wrote, “‘You can't repeat the past.’ ‘Can't repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously. ‘Why of course you can!’ He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand. ‘I'm going to fix everything just the way it was before,’ he said, nodding determinedly.”
Can Scott Fitzgerald return to his roots to slay the monster that destroyed him as a teenager or will Anthony Fowler show when it comes to prize fighting you can absolutely repeat the past. The great American novel was clear on that answer. On Saturday, this fight will be too.
What: Ryan Garcia vs. Jose Lopez, Lightweights
When: March 30How to Watch: DAZN 7:30 p.m. ET
Why You Should Care: To see if Ryan Garcia’s fame derails his championship hopes before they get started.
Marvin Hagler, perhaps the fighter most associated with rugged determination and a will of steel famously said, “It's tough to get out of bed to do roadwork at 5 a.m. when you've been sleeping in silk pajamas.”
The idea being, the daily grind that it takes to become a champion is hard to maintain without the drive of pulling yourself out of poverty. This is not a revolutionary idea; every boxer has struggled with the effects fame and fortune have on their drive and desire to be great, it’s basically the entire plot of “Rocky III.” But those issues usually arise after fighters have won championships.
Ryan Garcia’s situation is different. Already the star of a teen drama on Youtube, Garcia has 2.3 million Instagram followers, while Deontay Wilder has 1.7 million, Adrien Broner has 1.1 million, Mick Conlan has 199k, and for a cross sport comparison Bryce Harper has 1.5 million. That means, with no Olympic medals, a handful of TV appearances, and only 17 professional prizefights against zero name opponents, Ryan Garcia is a worldwide star.
So, does he still get up and run every morning? That’s the Ryan Garcia question, as there’s essentially no fighter in history you could compare him to because social media is so young. Garcia is paving his own path but may be paving his own path into a very familiar pitfall.
Jose Lopez is 20-3-1 but has lost two of his last three fights. Garcia should beat him easily, but better boxers have lost to worse fighters due to the perils of fame. Maybe Lopez can shock the world, and knock out “Kingry”, proving that when it comes to becoming a champion, you need a far greater motivation than doing it “for the gram.”