If you have Sky in the UK or DAZN elsewhere, and have nothing else going on this coming Friday afternoon (EST), you should tune into the Matchroom co-promoted bill in Florence. The card is pretty stacked with Italian domestic talent but this young cruiserweight banger is of particular interest. He's a southpaw lights-out puncher who likes to come forward and keeps in great shape...yet he's practically unspoken of beyond his native shores, only having been so much as mentioned in a few threads on here thus far: ...my RBR thread for his destruction of Darío Germán Balmaceda in February of last year, in his first WBC International silver 200lb title defense: https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/fabio-turchi-vs-darío-germán-balmaceda-rbr.601218/ ...my preview thread of his second title defense, against Tony Conquest: https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/fabio-turchi-vs-tony-conquest.619756/ ...and @f1ght3rz's RBR thread for the aforementioned Conquest fight: https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...a-vs-joe-hughes-boschiero-vs-ward-rbr.619888/ He makes his third defense this week against Sami Joonas "Boom-Boom" Enbom, a Finn and fellow southpaw who is probably an upgrade over the originally scheduled Jean-Jacques Oliver. Enbom and Oliver are both 31 years old and both have a pair of pro losses, but the Finnish man has more experience and his losses came against much better opposition...and his split decision victories over respectable Euro-level journeymen Tomáš "Jumbo" Adámek and Ismail "Cool" Abdoul blow away all of Oliver's wins. Turchi wants to be the next big thing in his country's boxing scene, and while he is probably too crude at this point in his career to ever achieve full-on world-class status he could indeed galvanize the fans enough to jack up TV ratings and spark a surge of renewed interest - between his dynamite fists and matinee idol looks, there's plenty for savvy networks and matchmakers to latch onto. As far as ceiling, I could easily see him grabbing an EBU belt, and even contending for a world title (but probably losing, ultimately). Gotta admire his ambition, though... This content is protected
The card will be rounded out by Alessandro Riguccini making the first defense of his WBC interim Silver welterweight title (regular champ as of last Saturday is Danny García) against Iván Guadalupe Álvarez Ruiz, and Orlando Fiordigiglio battling Stephen Danyo for the vacant IBF light middleweight international title. A pair of badly faded ex-European champions, 37 year old Devis Boschiero and 39 year old Emanuele Felice Blandamura, will be in 6-rounders at super feather & middleweight respectively on the undercard.
Bookmakers had Turchi a 1/8 favorite against Oliver, now a 1/20 favorite against Enbom. Not sure this is that much of a dip in quality; in fact I consider it the opposite.
Turchi vs. Enbom highlights start 5:25 into the video: This content is protected (don't worry about it only being "highlights", the fight basically only lasted a minute)
Turchi was supposed to face Tommy McCarthy on tomorrow's card in Rome (headlined by Emanuele Blandamura vs. Marcus Niall Morrison for the vacant WBC international Silver middleweight title) but appears to have been pulled out last minute. They scraped together a replacement opponent for McCarthy in local 36 year old club fighter named Francesco Cataldo. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ No details, just 'injury'.
