TV and Internet Fight Schedule - Weekend of April 16

Fernando Guerrero will be back in action this weekend in his hometown of Salisbury, Maryland. viawww.prizefightpromoters.com

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Wednesday, April 14

Main Event (Australia), 6:00 a.m. Eastern ($49.95 AUS), Danny Green vs. Manny Siaca, Will Tomlinson vs. Oscar Bravo, Naofel Ben Rabah vs. Solomon Egberime.  This is actually a pretty solid card for an Australian PPV, although the main event is fairly weak.  "Legend" Danny Green comes back from his first round knockout win over Roy Jones with a fight against former super middleweight titlist Siaca, who hasn't won a significant fight since beating Anthony Mundine in 2004.  11-0 Tomlinson is one of Australia's better prospects.  Bravo is also undefeated, but has never fought outside of his native Chile, which isn't exactly a country known for its great prizefighters, so who knows if he's any good.  This is Ben Rabah's first significant fight since getting back to back title shots against Juan Urango and Lovemore N'Dou.  He arguably won both of those fights, but at this point he's 32 and probably has significant ring rust.

Friday, April 16

Sky Sports (UK), 5:00 p.m. Eastern, Thomas McDonagh vs. Gary Woolcombe, Denton Vassel vs. Lee Purdy.  Ricky Hatton continues to become a promotional force in the UK, and in this card he's getting two of his wards shots at vacant commonwealth titles.  McDonagh last his last two to Anthony "Sugar Ray Clay Jones Bore Me to Death Jr." Small and current BBBoC titlist Sam Webb, but has a number of other good domestic names on his resume. Former British titlist Woolcombe has a 28-2 record, but the only really significant fight he's had was against Ryan Rhodes, which he lost.  11-0 Vassel and 13-1 Purdy could both be considered prospects and are both stepping up against each other, although Purdy has faced the much better opposition level up to this point.

ESPN2, 10:00 p.m. Eastern, Tony Thompson vs. Owen Beck, Hank Lundy vs. Tyrese Hendrix.  Thompson has stayed ranked and has a decent win over Chazz Witherspoon since his loss to Wladimir Klitschko, but at 38 years old, it's getting close to do or die time for Tony the Tiger.  Lundy and Hendrix are both undefeated lightweight prospects, with Lundy at 17-0-1 and Hendrix at 18-0-1, but neither has made much of a jump in class before this fight.  Also fighting on the undercard are Gary Russell Jr. and Lanard Lane, and since they're the bigger name prospects, we may be seeing their fights instead, even though those fights are against scrubs.  

Showtime, 11:00 p.m. Eastern, Fernando Guerrero vs. Michael Walker, Shawn Porter vs. Raul Pinzon.  One of our favorite prospects, the always exciting Guerrero doesn't necessarily take a step forward here, but it will help show us whether he's been improving.  Last time Guerrero fought a tough inside fighter, he barely nicked a win from Ossie Duran.  Walker gave Danny Jacobs one of his toughest tests to date and likes to bring on pressure.  Porter will try to rehabilitate his image after his last fight, a win over Russell "Spiderman" Jordan where he frequently looked befuddled by his opponent's length.  Pinzon is short and has been knocked out each time he's stepped up, so here's a chance for him to look good on TV again.  Adonis Stevenson and Dominic Wade also fight in the untelevised undercard.  

Saturday, April 17

ZDF (Germany), 5:15 p.m. Eastern, Robert Stieglitz vs. Eddy Gutknecht, Sebastian Zbik vs. Domeinco Spada.  Gutknecht earned this shot at Stieglitz's title by recenty beating Karoly Balzsay.  Like Stieglitz, Gutknecht is a decent boxer who doesn't possess a ton of natural talent; unlike Stieglitz, Gutknecht has trouble cracking an egg.  Gutknecht could pull off an upset simply because Stieglitz isn't that good, but Gutknecht isn't a long-term answer either.  Zbik vs. Spada is a rematch for a worthless interim title.  Winner is a mandatory for Kelly Pavlik, but since neither one is likely to be particularly interested in losing to Pavlik, they'll probably wait as long as possible to avoid taking that mandatory.

HBO, 9:30 p.m. Eastern, Mayweather-Mosley 24/7.

HBO, 10:00 p.m. Eastern, Kelly Pavlik vs. Sergio Martinez, Lucian Bute vs. Edison Miranda.  This split-site card is the start of something big for HBO, but we won't know what until after the fight is over.  There's a reason they're putting these two on the same card though, despite different cities and different promoters.  Martinez is about as good of a challenge as Pavlik is going to get, which shows how sad the state of affairs is at middleweight.  A top junior middleweight titlist, he gave Paul Williams a tough fight, but he's quite small to be facing Pavlik.  Miranda is also about as good of an opponent as Bute can get before people get eliminated from the Super Six, to which he was not invited.  We know what Miranda is and isn't at this point, and Bute is rightfully a heavy, heavy favorite.  We'll see what happens after the fight, but Bernard Hopkins has been calling out Bute since his win over Roy Jones, saying he wants to turn Bute into "a Canadian Kelly Pavlik."  Bad Left Hook will have live round by round coverage of this card.

TyC Sports (Argentina), 10:00 p.m. Eastern, Oscar Pereyra vs. Patricio Antonio Pedrero.  This one's for one of the WBA's lightweight trinkets, and with that title in a bit of flux (Humberto Soto holds it, but Edwin Valero is champion in recess and Anthony Peterson is the mandatory), expect the winner of this fight to get a shot at the belt in the not too distant future. 

Elsewhere in the world of boxing...

• Tonight, Shannon Briggs is back in action at the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida.  He's taking on faded Cuban Rafael Pedro.  I've heard rumblings that Hasim Rahman might be fighting on the card as well, but the fight isn't listed on Boxrec.  His last fight wasn't listed on Boxrec either until after the fact.  As an aside, Briggs has the greatest website ever.  His creepy fingers of death will make you pumped about Shannon Briggs.  
• One of those light heavyweights in my 'other' category, 10-0 Will Rosinsky, will be taking on journeyman Ariel Espinal.  Rosinsky is a 4-time New York state Golden Gloves champ, but he may end up peaking at the regional attraction level.  In something almost as rare as a true prospect-prospect fight - a gatekeeper-gatekeeper fight - 22-14-2 Maurice Harris will take on 23-13 Robert Hawkins.  Both guys have admirably fought a lot of bigger names, although it seems that Harris has more left in the tank at this point.  I believe this one will be in syndication as part of the Broadway Boxing series.  
• In the untelevised portion of the undercard at the Bell Centre, Renan St. Juste will face Dionisio Miranda.  St. Juste holds a regional trinket, but Miranda would probably be his best opponent to date.  Prospects Pier Olivier Cote and Sebastien Gauthier will also fight on the card.
• In the untelevised portion of the undercard at Boardwalk Hall, Mike Jones will face Hector Munoz.  He needs to get through this fight without an injury.  If he can, then he'll be the main supporting fighter on the Cotto-Foreman undercard.  Also, Matt Korobov and Glen Tapia both take stay-busy fights, and Ronald Hearns comes back quickly to take on Delray Raines in what could be an entertaining fight, even if it has no significance.  
• In the Philippines, Drian Francisco will take on Ricardo Nunez in a super flyweight title eliminator.  Francisco is one of the better Pinoy prospects out there at the moment, while Nunez is a knockout artist who has won a number of regional trinkets.