Cruiserweight and Heavyweight thread.

6' 4" Pryce Taylor from Brooklyn, NY will make his pro debut on December 1st in Queens against Mike Diorio (1-6-1).

Taylor was one of the Top USA amateur superheavies the past couple years and was ranked #3 last time I checked. He was runner-up in the 2022 National Championships. He'd been active in the TCL-Pro series last summer as preparation. He's getting a late start, but is an actual boxer - not a collegiate athlete who simply decided to change sports.

 

Always interested in this news about American amateur SHWs.

 

https://boxrec.com/en/event/882576/3078291

Not sure if this is just a boxrec glitching or being misinformed, or if there's something going on that I haven't been able to dig up, but apparently Mike Perez and Andrej Pesic will be fighting next Saturday with the WBA Cruiserweight title possibly at stake.

Take that with a grain of salt though. Been digging around and haven't been able to find any news on Goulamirian being stripped. In fact, the only thing I've been able to find related to this fight in regards to a title is an article from October, where Don King said the fight would be for the Bridgerweight title. Much like Goulamirian though, as far as I'm aware Rozanski hasn't been stripped and a fight with Badou Jack is still being worked on. Then again the WBC haven't updated their rankings in nearly two months (Brian Mendoza is still listed as an interim champion despite being stripped after his loss to Tszyu, for example), so who the hell knows what's going on.

Speaking of Bridgerweight, I found some stuff in regards to the Tishchenko-Harth fight. Nothing has been officially confirmed by the organization themselves as far as I can tell, but it does indeed look like the WBA will be recognizing the weight class and inaugurating their own champion on December 9th. Wonder what effect, if any, this will have on the undisputed fight considering Usyk usually comes in just under 224 pounds. Hopefully the WBA will do what the WBC has done and let it be a sort of "opt in" type of deal, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if undisputed is slightly spoiled by having one belt not be on the line because of something as dumb as a new weight class nobody even wants

 

Speaking of Bridgerweight...

Tom Schwarz will make his Bridgerweight debut on November 25th in Berlin by taking on Albanain Christian Demaj in a near-certain mismatch that will likely nonetheless fast-track Schwarz for a WBC Bridger title challenge in the near future.

And Tony Yoka will attempt to rebuild after a couple of gutless-looking losses to Martin Bakole and Carlos Takam by fighting former WBC Bridgerweight title challenger Ryad Merhy on December 9th in Paris. I'm no Yoka fan, but I think he's going to prevail over the 5' 11" Merhy who was stretched at Bridger and really has no business at heavyweight.

 

Taylor had a very aggressive style as an amateur. Definitely a "berzerker". Nice for building a bit of early hype with a bunch of quick KOs as a pro - but I don't think he's going very far without further development.

 

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I just assumed Pulev retired.

 

Andrzej Wawrzyk came back last year (after a six year layoff) and get stopped in Rd2 of his comeback fight against a nobody in Poland.

Wawryk has a good-looking record (34-2) and can probably ace the eye test...but I suspect that he is not a serious opponent and that Pulev (even as old as Kubrat is) will quickly stop him.

BTW: The Hangar has a capacity of only 435 people. And that's as a music venue. Unless the boxing ring is the size of a kiddie pool it will be less for this event.

Seems strange that Pulev would make a comeback for such small stakes. Something bigger brewing?

 

As expected, Pryce Taylor stopped his overmatched opponent, Mike DiOrio, on Friday night. The stop came in the dying seconds of the first round. Taylor will be back in action on December 16th against Chris Arnold (5-3). Fellow USA HW prospect Fernely Feliz Jr will also fight on this card against BoxRec #540 Raphael Carolina (2-3) in a fight that will do little more than allow him to shake off six months of inactivity.

The card featuring Taylor-DiOrio also included fights with "former" USA HW prospect Moses Johnson (11-1-2) who "earned" a stoppage win over a nobody named Emilio Salas as well as a somewhat-more-interesting fight between Italian Giovanni Scuderi (9-0) who succeeded in winning a dominant UD victory over omnipresent US journeyman Terrell Jamal Woods. I believe that this was Scuderi's HW debut and that he had previously fought at CW.

 

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December 16th in Moscow, Team Russia faces team USA. In the Main event Alexey Egorov takes on Joe Jones.

 

Tomorrow in Moscow, Teams ‘CSKA’ and ‘Dynamo’ square off.
Artem Suslenkov (CSKA) vs Yaroslav Doronichev is the Heavyweight contest.

 

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Apparently the IBF just can't wait til the Undisputed Heavyweight fight to spoil some fun, and are now threatening to strip Opetaia if he doesn't pull out of his fight on the 23rd and defend against Briedis. If he goes ahead with the fight, Briedis vs. Zurdo will be ordered for the vacant title.

 

Make it non-title fight in HW, and there should be no problem in going forward with it

 

Former WBA cruiserweight champion Ryad Merhy hammered out a ten round unanimous decision over 2016 Olympic super heavyweight gold medalist Tony Yoka on Saturday night at the Stade Roland-Garros in Paris, France. The 6’7" Yoka tried to keep the fight at a distance with his jab against Merhy, who is listed at 5’11".

Merhy was the aggressor and was able to get inside at times to land big punches. Yoka’s punch output diminished as the fight progressed with Merhy pulling away 96-94 3x. Three straight losses for Yoka, while Merhy gets back into the mix after a loss to Kevin Lerena.