Mihai "The Rock" Nistor

Next up for The Rock is Jaime Adán "Zarco "Solorio Sánchez, on the undercard of Jason Quigley vs. Oscar Osvaldo Cortés Navarro this coming Thursday night on Facebook, a Golden Boy Fight Night show they've kept under their hat until nearly the last minute in what has become typical fashion of late. Card details were only today released to BoxRec...which is actually more advance notice than usual from GBP now..

Solorio is officially 12-3-2 (9) with just one stoppage loss, but is coming off a 1½ year layoff prior to which he was knocked out in the final minute of an eight-rounder versus Richard "Popeye The Sailor Man" Rivera. Due to a positive test for lidocaine (banned by the Connecticut commission but not the World Doping Agency, and something that has legitimate uses in a hospital setting as in Rivera's case when it was used in treatment of some lacerations, but which can also be abused as a pain duller in combat sports) Rivera was stripped of his ABF title and the result was overturned to a NC. Solorio debuted at light middleweight and the Rivera fight was his cruiser debut, having previously only fought at light heavy and below (with his previous big step up being against D'mitrius "Big Meech" Ballard, who shut him out in a 10-rounder). So this is a compulsory early and impressive KO victory for Nistor, or else he's going to lose a lot of the word-of-mouth buzz and momentum he carried into the pros..

 

Neither is a world beater for sure. Nistor at least will be able to reliably smash up the sort of skinnamarink fringe contender that Quigley will be at risk of getting upset by here and there.