Mairis Briedis vs. Danie Venter & Arturs Kulikauskis vs. Sergei Ekimov RBR

Yeah, it stopped working again. :desk

 

In the co-feature, 12-0 Russian prospect Sergei Ekimov takes on local journeyman Arturs Kulikauskis.

Despite having a losing record (by quite some margin), the Latvian has an impressive roster of names faced. He wen the distance with Ismail Sillakh, Patrick Bois, Dariusz Sek, Iago Kiladze, Thierry Karl and Patrick Dobroschi - and has only been stopped a handful of times in fifty bouts, courtesy of Bellew, Masternak, Larghetti, and two unbeaten prospects I'm unfamiliar with. Most tellingly, Kulikauskis actually has a victory over Youri Kalenga! :shock:

Ekimov, meanwhile, has yet to really step up in class, with the biggest notch in his belt so far being Konstantin Piternov.

 

According to Match! TV's schedule (at the bottom of the same page linked in the OP with the live stream), this broadcast is set to run from 9pm to midnight central Russian time/8pm to 11pm local time in Riga/1pm to 4pm EST.

They are clearly filling time with fluff and hype pieces for the first half an hour as you can see, but that still leaves 2.5 hours of boxing. My guess is that Briedis vs. Venter will be preceded by Ekimov vs. Kulikauskis and maybe one quick undercard bout.

 

Any version of Mollo that I've ever seen beats the Charr that fought Saglam. Or stands an excellent chance, anyway.

 

Yeah. Boxing's own Mirko Filipovic.

(or rather, the pro game's answer to Italian amateur legend Roberto Cammarelle)

 

I am getting intrigued by the co-feature.

You'll notice a pattern on BoxRec event pages; they get the running order from the promoter and list matches by a fixed system of putting the name of the guy that's "supposed" to win on the left - if not the 'house fighter' handled by the promoter, then usually the betting or common sense favorite. Ofttimes in the case of an upset the BR editors will switch the names around to make themselves look smart like they were favoring the guy that sprang the upset the whole time. :yep

In this case, they have Kulikauskis on the left. :think

Now, that could just be due to him being a Latvian and this being in Latvia (though I'm guessing he probably isn't promoted by Al Siesta Boxing, which is based in the UK) - but compounding this is the fact that in all of Match! TV's promotional materials that I've seen this is being treated like a true doubleheader with more emphasis than you'd expect placed on the light heavyweights. The event is never simply billed with Briedis & Venter's names, as though it were the sole meaningful part of an otherwise showcase-laden bill.

Maybe his people really do have faith in the 17-27-6 fighter being able to render Ekimov into a pile of borscht.