Javier Molina vs. Gustavo Garibay & Michael Hunter vs. Oswaldo Ortega RBR

Top of the hour.

Live stream here:
www.bisai8.com/channel/cctv5

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A little morning quánjí to warm up this coldest Tuesday of the year so far.

This is the first televised card of 2018.

 

Weird little card.

Twelve boxers - half a dozen Mexicans and half a dozen Americans (in fact, cordoned off into nationalistic teams - half a dozen Mexicans versus half a dozen Americans); zero Chinese boxers.

On a Tuesday.

 

Right? Javier Molina making his ring return after a 2 year absence following his loss to Jamal James, headlining. Michael Hunter, maybe the #2 CW in the US behind Tahiti, coming off his UD loss to Usyk in a world title bid, co-headlining versus a guy with a losing record.

Then four rando US prospects matched up with four rando journeyman from south of the border.

All in Jinan, China.

On a Tuesday.

 

I have often heard CCTV5 referred to as "the ESPN of the East" (as in, "the other half-of-the-worldwide leader in sports") - and disrespecting our beloved sport by preempting it for basketball is very much in keeping with that parallel. :-/

edit: insult to injury, not even live basketball...nor featuring a Chinese league, team or even a single player of Han descent. They're showing - interspersed with a studio crew of young Chinese dudes in suits in a studio, arranged standing in a stiff, awkward side-by-side row, providing snippets of pithy commentary one by one - a rebroadcast of the United States vs. Spain finals game from the Olympics - and not even the Beijing ones, as that could sort of make sense. No, from the London Games, in 2012.

 

Okay so they're doing a biography of a fat nerdy bespectacled dude who apparently did play by play for CCTV5 covering basketball at the London Olympics...and now he's standing in front of a seated panel of what seem like American Idol judges who are nodding approvingly telling him what a good job he did. Six years ago. Wearing a headset and calling a basketball game involving two other countries.

This is SO WEIRD.

I have the feeling next they're going to be like "for your service the People's Republic has decided that you shall not die a virgin as nature probably intended, and to reward you with a hot bride of your choice. We have one candidate each from thousands of villages; you may peruse their profiles and dowries and pick at your leisure."

This all has a very unsettling reality show/Hunger Games feel to it.

 

Okay now time for ping-pong. Rapidly approaching midnight local time.

...god DAMN it. Quánjí is like the Rodney Dangerfield of sports; around the globe is gets no respect.

 

Hope you like ping-pong.

 

Well, this was nice in theory.

 

Interesting. Of the six Mexican opponents on the card, the only remotely decent name to have on your record would be Hugo Lomeli, whose record is a relatively serviceable 20-12-1 (15), and who enjoyed some mixed success on the domestic scene, bagging a regional (Jalisco) title and twice challenging for national titles (at welterweight and super middle) while taking on some recognizable names like Rigoberto Álvarez (mediocre brother of Canelo, best known for getting a gift decision over Nobuhiro Ishida), Jose Luis Zertuche, Saul Roman and Nacho Esparza - though he came back last year having ballooned up sixty lbs during his 4-year layoff, going from MW in one contest to HW in his next.

He was originally scheduled to be Michael Hunter's opponent, which makes sense as he's by far the biggest name on the card. Molina had some hype when he was a prospect, but James defeated him in early 2016 and Hunter is more recently in the news having challenged Usyk (and done okay, all things considered).

Weirdly, though, it somehow ended up reshuffled at the last minute so that Hunter is facing Ortega with his 3-7 record instead - but not because Lomeli was injured or anything. He's still on the card, but facing 9-1 local Bostonian heavyweight Donnie Palmer. I can't imagine why they would snatch the better resume-dressing from amateur star and likely higher-upside commodity Hunter and give it to Palmer.

Everything about this event is an enigma...like a Chinese box...

 

This is equal parts depressing and hilariously absurd.

...how often do we as boxing fans need to utter that sentence?

 

Now a bird's eye view of a board game in progress - a wooden board with a grid with the squares at its polar extremes occupied by smooth round black and white stones, which also fill a wooden bowl at either side of the board.

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe this is the ancient Oriental chess predecessor weiqi, or "Go".

This is a professional Go match airing on CCTV5. Not highlights, nor part of another show. This is just what's on right now. This is the program.

I'm officially closing the open tab with the stream now, rather than wait around like a jilted high school girl sitting by the phone hoping the lantern-jawed quarterback will call like he said he would. If the weird card in Jinan really happened, it already happened by now. So...yeah.

 

Still no BoxRec updates or Twitter results for this chicanery.