Smith vs Bauderlique and Hrgovic vs Zhilei on the Usyk-AJ II card

Good news, two very good matchups.

It's now an excellent PPV card.

 

Let’s hope it all happens

 

You can see the full card on matchrooms instagram.

 

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Solid undercard. Great title eliminators and Badou Jack is on the card and always fun to watch regardless of his age and wear and tear.

 

Badou Jack's opponent - Richard Rivera - is a curious choice, as he's a relative unknown.

He goes by "Popeye the Sailor Man" - but he's been accused of taking more than spinach. Nobody would fight him at Cruiserweight in the USA (which is saying something because it's been really, really difficult to get Cruiserweight fights in the USA in the past four or five years) - due to rumored PED use, so he made a move to Light Heavyweight.

I did see him fight once at Cruiserweight against Joe Jones in 2019. He survived an early chin check from Jones and then proceeded to give him a boxing clinic for the remainder of the eight rounds. Objectively, he is a skilled fighter with fast-ish hands, but doesn't seem to have all that much power.

This could be a good fight and Jack isn't what he was a few years ago. But it would not surprise me at all if the fight gets binned due to a PED infraction.

 

2 great fights, 3 good fights. Not bad, but not what it could be, let's be honest.

If this were a regular title fight, I would be surprised and delighted by the quality. But this is Usyk vs Joshua 2, the most popular HW in the world trying to avenge a loss vs the undefeated Ukrainian coming back from military action while the battle rages in his home country.

 

An undercard of a massive fight is less likely to be stacked than a regular fight as the undercard of Usyk- Joshua does very little to move the buy rate.

Say you was to switch this undercard with the undercard of Chisora v Pulev, more people would have watched that, but the exact same would be watching this

 

Historically Joshua fights have had great undercards.

Joshua vs Ruiz 2 had Povetkin vs Hunter, Whyte vs Wach (which ended up being good), Hrgovic vs Molina and Majidov vs Little. Quality wise after the first two it drops off but all nice heavyweight slugfests, except for the main.

 

Well worth the $1200 ppv price.

 

Don't give them ideas!

 

Hrgovic-Zhang will be cancelled.

 

Inflation has hit sex workers very hard; their cost was included in my estimation for the PPV.

 

Compare this to Fury vs Whyte PPV, oh dear no comparison at all ....