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Xander Zayas v Jorge Garcia Perez ESPN Sat. 26th - The last show
To me this is much more about the finale and reality that as it stands, this will be the very last network boxing on ESPN...not to mention as far as in the States...the last boxing held on network tv. A reality that the sport and wide swath of fighters have benefited from and grew with since the 1940's. If you've come up as a fan prior to the 00's and 90's you cannot help but emphasis that and have to sit with it a moment. Maybe a few moments. There was a run of years from early to late 90's and a short bit in the 00's that on any given week locally that broke down as such
Monday...Fight night at the Forum or Madison Square Garden boxing. Usually a couple cards a month regularly. The Forum cards were absolute gold.
Tuesday...USA Tuesday Night fights. They were seasonal and ran majority of the year. Did replays of every card the same night. Also the first place I've seen that would replay portions or selected fights of the previous weekends PPV. You just didn't get better than this absolute randomness that they aired.
Wednesday...Nothing with regular programming where I was but on occasion ESPN would air there instead of Fridays.
Thursday...ESPN would move cards back and forth and try to work around other major sports, NBA, NCAA etc. so often had cards that night.
Friday...With rare exception Fridays were stacked. Boxing on FS1, FNF cards on ESPN ran majority of the year. Univision aired cards. Telefutura the same.
Saturday...Well no shit. HBO was king. Showtime was running on a regular basis. Early on you had cards maybe twice a month, but they were "events". Later they started going head to head which was frustrating but also put promotions doing real competition. You were often left flicking back and forth, some of us even had 2,3 TVs set up in different rooms
. And they always did replays on Sunday mornings and some nights. You also had Solo Boxeo cards on any given Spanish channel. You also had on any given weekend afternoon fights on free stations like NBC, ABC or CBS. Not all at once by any means but they were known as "the big 3" in the States. Where it all originated.
Sunday...The majority of Sundays on Univision they would air international title fights. 1 or 2. From everywhere, Argentina, Thailand, UK, France, Japan etc. It was the rare chance for fans in the States to see fighters globally. Boxing was still in the confines of boarders pre internet of course. You read about them in one of the many mags we coveted but unless you were trading tapes, you just didn't see that many boxers from so many different countries. Pre internet was...just different.
So basically...regular scheduled boxing a minimum of 5 nights of the week. In one fashion or another, it was consistent programming well beyond all the big names but you discovered guys that wouldn't even get the airtime today. Put me down in the "more exposure grows the sport" category. Ok excuse the ramble, other than dating myself badly and moaning over obsolete media
So Xander Zayas takes on #2 Garcia and it will definitely, on paper, be his toughest fight to date. And Zayas really needs that as he sits at #1 without doing a ton of scalp collecting. If we're being honest. The Wbo is vacant and Crawford is officially gone come Sept. so now is the time for Zayas who looks to grab the vacant belt in a still very deep 154. Should be a good solid match this one.
Bruce Shu Shu Carrington back at it going for the interim belt v 14-0 Mateus Heita out of Nambia. Not too familiar with Heita but while he has fewer fights than Shu Shu, he has also had a handful of scheduled 12 rounders. Small details may or may not come to mean much but when it comes to rounds Shu Shu has gone the 10 round distance exactly one time. For a superb talent who has seemingly been fast tracked to a belt you just have to keep an eye on it. Love to see a competitive fight here and hope we see just that. Here's to hoping the tv era goes out with an absolute bang.
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. Great right hand turned over perfectly. Time for some real meals for young Vargas.
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