The ESPN Friday Night Fights Thread.

Disappointingly, two days ago Derek Ennis was forced to withdraw from his scheduled bout with Demetrius Andrade this Friday due to a high fever(apparently he's failed to produce a doctor's note, meaning he'll now be punished by the commission). As a result Terrance Cauthen was drafted in, but despite accepting the fight he never sent a contract back, meaning we're now left with another replacement in Angel Hernandez.

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I'm slacking lately, have some Slip instead of me:

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I've only watched one of Hernandez's fights(there's not an awful lot out there on him), which was a bout where he unsuccessfully challenged for Winky Wright's IBF light middleweight title on the undercard of Jones-Tarver I. He appeared rather awkward, left hand low with his chin tucked into his right hand at range, but utilised the bob'n'weave whenever he looked to get into a position where he could do damage and seldom threw a straight or conventional punch, with the majority of his shots being wild roundhouse blows around the side of Winky's guard, which bothered his more established foe on a number of occasions. A couple the scorecards were slightly wider than they should've been(I thought he took at least 3 IIRC), but nonetheless Wright deserved the win as he perpetually countered an extremely determined Hernandez, who for all of his output left himself far too open as he let his shots go.

Here's the problem though; that was over 8 years ago. And he wasn't exactly revered back then either, being considered as another average challenger during Winky's reign. Then again, the difference between his ability then and now could mirror the disparity between Wright and Andrade, who knows? Since then he hasn't been busy, clocking up nine fights(featuring Vanes Martirosyan, Peter Manfredo Jr and the perennially unfortunate Osumanu Adama amongst others) and losing five of them(in relatively decent company though, to be fair), but even so I think he's a pretty good adversary for Andrade under the circumstances. For a third choice opponent it's not bad on paper to have a guy who's been in with the aforementioned names for an up and comer like Andrade, who'll surely be hoping to step it up a few gears after this.

Andrade should take just about every round en route to a decision, as his somewhat negative style doesn't suggest he'll be stopping a fairly durable dude like Hernandez. Hopefully he'll try to make an example out of the 36 year old though and push for a stoppage.

 

Oh my. That shows you how lazy I've been when it comes to boxing lately, I couldn't even look up an article.

EDIT: Why was my title edited?:huh