Thanks in large part to a positive reception to its "feeling out the waters" broadcast of FOTY candidate Youri Kalenga vs. Yunier Dorticos this past May (for which the RBR thread here by TheBeast was sadly - and stupidly - deleted by the admins :verysad - but trust, it was a good fight, and you can read about it elsewhere), the French premium cable station, which in decades past has featured a bevy of domestic and international pugilism, will renew its focus on the sport after having largely neglected it for the past several years. It had reportedly committed to air half a dozen cards on French soil this year alone, in a dramatic shift from its pattern of just piggybacking a feed on the occasional big event overseas. This is good news for the stagnant boxing scene in France, as well as globally. The country has produced some nice talents but they have been stuck in a quagmire of having a shallow pool to hone their skills against while having to go abroad to be televised and/or find meaningful competition. Tomorrow (or rather, later today, for everybody in the world but those in the westernmost US time zone) afternoon is the first of these, with European middleweight champ Michel Soro headlining and longtime MW contender Hassan N'Dam N'Jikam in chief support. Neither is a true native, hailing from Côte DIvoire and Cameroon respectively, but they are both homegrown talents having lived in L'Hexagone since before their professional debuts and based there ever since. While both are likely to resume campaigning at 160lbs in the future (and both could be a couple of top-20ish victims away from angling toward world title contention) they're each taking a sojourn to another division, one up and the other down. Abou returns to his old super welter stomping grounds to face heavy-handed but fragile Argentine brawler Hector David Saldivia for the WBA international strap, while HNN moves up to super middleweight to face 18-2-1 (5) Tamasz Gargula of Poland, still carrying some of the extra weight he put on for the qualifiers of the Rio Olympics - where he will be competing in the 81kg light heavyweight class - and likely to carry it until their conclusion. The former has a tougher assignment on paper (relatively - still a heavy favorite) but the Cameroonian is still recovering from a loss this month in those very qualifiers, to larger Juan Carrillo of Venezuela, uncounted on his pro dossier but still leaving a hurdle to leap to restore his confidence. Hopefully this pair is featured on Canal+ more often (unless they end up stamping their passports for bigger & better opportunities than would be available for them at home) along with some of the fresher young prospects in the pipeline or already graduated into the mix at European level with solid efforts to show for it - such as Maxime Beaussire, Yvan Mendy, Romain Jacob, Chris Rebrasse, Johann Duhaupas, Cedric Vitu and Vincent Legrand... not to mention Kalenga himself. On air from 2:45pm EST. Soro and Saldivia in the ring at ~3:45pm EST.
Cаnаl with Cyrillic A's works like a charm.:deal I doubt Saldivia last more than 2 or 3 rounds with Soro, but if he does, I'm going to start saying Brook hits like a Light Middleweight:yep
France have a very good Olympic team this year so hopefully the increased shows can get some of them to turn over, Yoka of course being the most coveted and M'Billi Assomo. Waiting for Legrand to step up
Great. Now when they have a fight like Somsak Sithchatchawal vs Mahyar Monshipour people can see it somewhere besides youtube.
Cedric Vitu defends his Euro title versus former holder Isaac Real in November. :think That would be a great pick-up for C+.
French film culture isn't what it used to be, so their movie channels might as well join us degenerates and show boxing.
