There are two very important weekends in boxing.
The first is Cinco de Mayo weekend. The first weekend around May 5th has been the center of many big-named fights featuring Mexican boxers. Oscar de la Hoya and then Canelo Alvarez took over this weekend.
The second is Mexican Independence Weekend in September. Similarly, boxing promoters have cornered the market on this weekend with Alvarez the primary headliner in recent memory.
This weekend, Zuffa Boxing takes over this weekend featuring Ryan Garcia fighting Conor Benn. While Canelo-Crawford was Zuffa Boxing’s “first” foray into boxing promotion, Garcia-Benn will be the first “big” fight in its history for this weekend.
And with this weekend, TKO continues with its dominance over the world of combat sports.
UFC Noche, which took place a couple years ago at The Sphere, opposite a Canelo Alvarez fight crosstown will run again. This time, as a way to avoid conflict with its stablemate, the UFC Noche event will take place in Glendale, Arizona.
The UFC event continues with its spate of uninspired booking as Jean Silva faces Jose Delgado. While the event will still pay tribute to the Mexican experience, the booking of these events have decreased since the Sphere show.
WWE, which purchased Mexican pro wrestling promotion AAA will hold multiple events over the weekend. The first being Friday night in Las Vegas and the second night being Sunday (to avoid the Garcia-Benn) fight in Monterrey, Mexico. To promote this event, WWE is bringing in Roman Reigns to Sunday’s event to face Penta. Clearly, TKO sees this as a great way to promote the brand and grab the Mexican audience.
The main event is Zuffa Boxing’s fight featuring Ryan Garcia taking on Conor Benn. On the undercard, Jai Opetaia, the company big acquisition in March is taking on Noel Mikaelian. The co-main event has taken on some water as Mikaelian, a Don King Promotions fighter, has expressed concern with the fight. Don King has issued a cease and desist to Zuffa Boxing demanding that the fight not occur. However, no lawsuit has been filed over it.
Opetaia filed a lawsuit against the IBF this past summer claiming that he was wrongfully stripped of his title after he participated in a Zuffa Boxing event in March. The IBF has filed a Motion to Dismiss the lawsuit claiming that the sanctioning body’s rules permitted it to withdraw sanctioning of his fight in March. Moreover, Opetaia did not follow the IBF rules in seeking an appeal and thus did not pursue the correct avenues for recourse.
Regardless, the fight will go forward and is worthy of co-main event status.
As for the main event, Garcia is the new “golden boy” of this era as he faces Conor Benn. Although Garcia is still promoted by Oscar de la Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions, little media has centered around this. Dana White has been the man up front in what seems to be his happy place.
As the favorite a Garcia win should solidify himself as the “face” of boxing. Expect him to sign with Zuffa Boxing and a contentious lawsuit between Dana and Golden Boy to occur
Originally appears on Patreon.
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