Oleksandr Sergeevich Gvozdyk vs. Doudou Mapwanga Kitanda Djiké

Headlining a Top Rank card tomorrow @ 2300 Arena in Philly, airing on ESPN+ in the US and BoxNation in the UK. WBC light heavyweight title at stake, 1st defense of Gvozdyk.

The venue is completely sold out, at every price-point, with not even general admission tickets available, which means that potentially this could set a new attendance record for the former "ECW Arena" - previously held by Mike Awesome vs. Spike Dudley nineteen years ago. This is actually quite impressive, considering that Djiké (aka Doudou Ngumbu) isn't a big name opponent, and neither of the principals of the welterweight co-main event - not Keita Obara, nor Qudratillo Xabibullo Ogli "The Punisher" Abduqaxorov will be recognizable to diehard international boxing fans, and there are no established Philadelphia draws on the undercard, aside from southpaw fringe contender "The New Ray Robinson"...but he's being fed to Egidijus Kavaliauskas.

Gvozdyk is commanding attention since his destruction of Adonis Stevenson. Hopefully this momentum continues and we can see if he can fill larger places to capacity with a higher caliber of challenger.

 

Running order:

https://www.boxnation.com/boxing-news/oleksandr-gvozdyk-v-doudou-ngumbu-running-order/

 

Djiké/Ngumbu is a 17/1 underdog.

 

Note: the co-feature is Kavaliauskas vs. Robinson, and not Abduqaxorov vs. Obara like one might assume. The latter bout is headlining the ESPN+ undercards from 6:30pm EST. The main televised broadcast on ESPN is only Kavaliauskas vs. Robinson and then Gvozdyk vs. Djiké, from 10pm EST. BoxNation is only showing the main event, from 10:30pm EST/2:30am GMT.

 

Weigh-ins start in about ~90mins.

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Weigh-in should be about underway:

http://www.espn.com/boxing/

 

Ah n/m they're only being shown on +.

Twats.

 

Well in this case they are, not sure what you want from me. According to BN themselves, coverage picks up for them at 2:30am UK time. Normally that would mean 9:30pm EST but currently the way daylight savings is lined up on either side of the pond the differential is only -4 hours instead of -5.

2:30am UK = 10:30pm EST currently.

The whole undercard including Abduqaxorov vs. Obara is on ESPN+ from 6:30-10pm EST. The main doubleheader (Kavaliauskas vs. Robinson and then Gvozdyk vs. Ngumbu) airs from 10pm EST on regular ESPN.

So if they're starting half an hour later than ESPN, around when Kavaliauskas vs. Robinson ought to be over (10 rounder), it stands to reason they are only showing the main event live ... best case maybe some tape-delayed undercard. Otherwise they have misreported their start time but that isn't my problem.

 

Granted that might have been their estimate for the main event ring walks but that wasn't made clear in BoxNation's tweet, it just said they were starting at 2:30am.

 

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