This Week in Boxing.

Welcome to another week of boxing fight fans. I hope you have sufficiently recovered from the explosive events of the weekend just passed. You have? Excellent, well without any further ado, let’s get straight to it and see what this new boxing week holds in store. On Thursday in San Antonio, Texas, we will see if Marco Antonio Rubio can continue his rebuilding process

since his knockout loss to Kofi Jantuah with a win against Colombian hard-case Juan Carlos Candelo. Former world title challenger Candelo is not enjoying the best of form these days. There is no shame in losing to Kassim Ouma, a fighter who went on to become a world champion. But Candelo may be a little less enthusiastic about his performance in dropping a decision to Eduardo Sanchez in his last fight; Sanchez took the fight on only seven hours notice. A win for either fighter may land them in an elimination bout for a world title shot once again. Defeat may mean that they become stern tests for contenders showing the type of promise they have each failed to capitalize on.

On the same night over in New York City, Dimitriy Salita, the hard-hitting prospect fighting out of Brooklyn by way of the Ukraine will seek his twenty-first win in as many outings. There aren’t many sure things when it comes to the boxing world, but seeing as Salita will face Darelle Sukerow, a fighter with twelve losses against only eleven wins, I think all of you prediction specialists out there can afford to be bolder than usual regarding this fight.

On Friday, the week comes to its end and the boxing world really starts to awaken. As such, our first piece of business on this day comes from Mexico City, Mexico and the fight between Jose Aguirre and Eric Ortiz for the vacant WBC light flyweight title. Aguirre, a former WBC minimum weight champion knows the taste of world championship success, and having disposed of his last three opponents, he is ready to sample it again at his new weight. Standing in his way is Ortiz who, strangely enough, won an IBF light flyweight elimination bout in his last fight, and yet now finds himself in place to claim the WBC version of the crown. Not fully grabbed your attention yet? People, these are two Mexican fighters going at it for a world championship. Ah yeah, now I made you look, don’t miss it.

Lastly on Friday, we have a heavyweight confrontation between Taurus Sykes and Friday “the 13th” Ahunanya taking place in New Mexico. Once upon a time, Sykes’ name received mention as a possible contender in the heavyweight division. However, Owen Beck said, “What the heck?” and ruined all of that. Five years have passed and Sykes has not tasted defeat in all that time. It is a heavyweight crossroads fight for both men, and Ahunanya, coming from a fifth round TKO loss to Lance Whitaker, will be keen to make Sykes’ second run at a title a complete horror show.

Saturday is the last truly significant day of the boxing week this week, and it hardly gets any bigger in the super middleweight division than Markus Beyer vs. Danny Green in Germany for the WBC title. Now in his third reign as the WBC champion, a tenure that stretches back to 1999, Beyer knows he must impress against Green, the roughhouse Australian who almost took the title away from him in 2003. The controversial nature of the stoppage in that first fight lends a grudging tone to the rematch as Green, who has since become the interim champion, returns to claim what he feels would be his but for a contentious disqualification. On the under-card, cruiserweight Rudiger May faces Krzysztof Wlodarczyk for the European title and heavyweight Timo Hoffman returns to the ring for the first time since his draw with European heavyweight champion Luan Krasniqi to face Australian Bob Mirovic.

Finally for this week, we visit Montreal in Canada for the Otis Grant vs. Nader Hamden fight being held at the Casino de Montreal. As the current Canadian super middleweight champion Grant feels that he is drawing ever nearer to regaining a world title as he once did before his five years hiatus from the sport. Hamden cannot claim to have fought similar quality opposition to Grant, but his untold hunger might be enough to overwhelm the hometown favorite.

As always, make sure to keep checking back to SaddoBoxing.com for all the latest news and results of all of these fights as they happen. We look forward to bringing you another closer look at the world’s boxing events only in “this week in boxing.”

Jim Cawkwell can be reached at jimcawkwell@yahoo.co.uk