The Massive Boxing Evening: Six fights to look at on Saturday

The Big Boxing Night: Six fights to watch on Saturday

When Jennifer Hahn bought the decision in 2023, she knew this wasn’t going to be simple. Not even shut. The opponent – the undisputed light-weight champion Katie Taylor – was extraordinarily proficient. There was additionally its personal standing.

Han had given delivery to her second little one, Nolan, months earlier. She stated she gained 75 kilos throughout her being pregnant. To battle Taylor, you would wish to lose 55.

“It was horrible,” Han stated of dropping that weight. “I would not advise anybody to lose that type of weight so shortly. That is simply an excessive amount of.”

She tried diets that drained her vitality and hampered her coaching. When she misplaced to Taylor on September 4 by unanimous choice, she wasn’t fairly the identical. Her instincts and reflexes had been fully missing.

Saturday offers one other alternative – a extra balanced one for the 38-year-old – when she takes on WBO and IBF Junior Light-weight Champion Mikaela Mayer. Han was in a position to prepare usually, and she or he felt like the previous featherweight champion who had defended her title 4 instances earlier than giving delivery to her first little one.

And whereas she wished she had these larger, televised alternatives earlier in her profession, no less than they’re arising now. A part of the rationale Meyer and Taylor are the place they’re now — they signed promotional offers and personal the principle occasion venue on broadcast tv — is due to the work of Han and different notable girls earlier than them.

“Once I began boxing, not many ladies had been boxing,” Han stated. “And definitely I used to be one of many pioneer technology in girls’s boxing.”

Han turned to boxing for a similar purpose some feminine boxers look to blended martial arts – the chance. It was kickboxer and could not discover fights. So boxing, regardless of its relative nascent nature on the time, gave her a better likelihood.

She turned skilled in 2009 and misplaced her debut to Melissa St. Phil. Promoters, normally, weren’t often signing off on feminine fighters when she made the choice to show skilled. They did not do this for some time after that both. Televised girls’s fights weren’t occurring. However now she’s in a foremost occasion in opposition to Meyer on ESPN.

It is a great distance since Hahn was a part of the US nationwide boxing staff on the first AIBA Girls’s World Championships in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 2001. She was 18 years previous then. Battles like Saturday didn’t exist.

“There have been girls on the [national] He was 34,” Han stated, “We have struggled all our lives simply to have this sort of alternative. And I knew then that this was mainly historic. So for Mikaela Meyer and I combating on ESPN as the principle champ, I imply, it is the second time she’s been a lead, however ESPN, that is wonderful.

“And I do know I’ll make, you already know, my youngsters pleased with their mother. It is a wrestle, and I am blissful to be part of it.”

However this is not the one battle to look at on Saturday. Let’s check out 5 extra rounds, their leisure worth and what’s at stake for the fighters.


quantity. 1 Gennady Golovkin vs. Ryota Murata (DAZN, 5 a.m. ET)

Why you need to watch: Even on the age of 40 (he turns 40 the day earlier than the battle), Golovkin is taken into account top-of-the-line fighters on the planet. Morata ought to no less than give it a attempt. Golovkin (41-1-1, 36 KO) final fought on December 18, 2020 in a win over Kamel Zermita – presumably his strongest opponent because the Canelo Alvarez fights.

Morata’s final eight victories have come by knockout or retirement. When his battles got here to a decision, he misplaced a cut up choice to Hassan Nadam and a unanimous choice to Rob Brant. Each avenged the strike.

What’s at stake: For Golovkin, the IBF champ, he is ensuring to not take off any sparks from a possible third battle with Alvarez. Shedding to Morata, the “tremendous” WBA champion, would have decimated the hype of the battle – as thrilling as the primary two had been – attributable to Alvarez’s continued dominance and the truth that Golovkin can be 40, and that age can maintain as much as anybody.

Murata (16-2, 13 KO) has an opportunity to place himself in a distinct class inside the division – and possibly put himself in line to battle in opposition to Demetrius Andrade or Germal Charlo if he’ll win.


2 Ryan Garcia vs Emmanuel Tago (DAZN, 9 p.m. ET)

Why you need to watch: Garcia’s comeback has been a great distance since he beat Luke Campbell on January 2, 2023. Garcia has taken break day to speak about his psychological well being and open up about his expertise in public. He was to return on November 27 in a battle in opposition to Josef Diaz, however he injured his proper hand and wanted surgical procedure.

Garcia (21-0, 18 KO) is a present each time he will get into the ring. The light-weight 23-year-old stays one of the common figures within the sport, however the best way he seems to be in opposition to Tago is probably essentially the most attention-grabbing factor about this busy boxing day.

In Tagoe (32-1, 15 KO), he faces a fighter who should defeat him. The 33-year-old has not misplaced since his skilled debut in 2004, however he has by no means fought somebody of Garcia’s caliber. So it is a good battle to see the place Garcia will probably be out after such a protracted layoff.

What’s at stake: The light-weight division has modified so much since Garcia’s final battle. Teofemo Lopez is now not on the high and now Jorge Camposos Jr. is chasing everybody. The road to the highest remains to be crowded – Devin Haney, Gerfonta Davis and Vasily Lomachenko are nonetheless on Garcia Highway. Spectacular efficiency by Garcia retains him in on the spot dialog. If it does not, he’ll most likely take a step again for a minute. The excellent news for him is that, both method, he is solely 23, so there is a lengthy profession forward of him.


No. 3 Ericsson Lubin vs Sebastian Fundora (Showtime, 10 p.m. ET)

Why you need to watch: Need to see the way forward for the junior middleweight division? 26-year-old Lupine (24-1, 17 KO) and 24-year-old Fundora (18-0-1, 12 KO) are ranked 3 and 5 within the division’s ESPN rankings and two of essentially the most attention-grabbing rookies in boxing.

Lubin’s solely loss got here to Jeremy Charlo by first-round knockout in 2017 – however he is labored his method again up since then, together with a sixth-round knockout from Jason Rosario final October. Fundora does not have the résumé that Lubin does, however he is likely one of the most attention-grabbing fighters in boxing, with a peak of 6ft 5s. It is a confusion of the match for any opponent and will probably be an actual take a look at right here.

What’s at stake: An actual shot, maybe, in opposition to the winner of Jeremy Charlo and Brian Castano on the Undisputed Junior Middleweight Championship on Might 14.


No. 4 Marilyn Esparza vs. Naoko Fujioka (DAZN, 9 p.m. ET)

Why you need to watch: Esparza is a fighter who usually does not get the eye of lots of her friends, however the 32-year-old is a technically sensible fighter. Her solely loss to Sinisa Estrada in 2019 got here in top-of-the-line girls’s fights of the previous few years.

Its opponent, Fujioka, shouldn’t be taken flippantly, even when it’s not very well-known in the US. That is her ninth straight battle both holding a belt or a belt on the streak – relationship again to 2015 in opposition to Hee Jung Yuh, when she received the WBO bantamweight title. He is likely to be on Garcia-Tagoe’s backside card, however that is likely to be the battle of the evening on the Alamodome in San Antonio.

What’s at stake: There are a number of belts on the road on this unification match. Esparza (11-1, 1 KO) will defend her WBC flyweight title for the primary time whereas Fujioka (19-2-1, 7 KO) will defend her WBA title for the fourth time. The winner can have a chance to place themselves in a greater place to proceed taking on the division.


No. 5 Michaela Meyer vs. Jennifer Hahn (ESPN/ESPN+, 10 p.m. ET)

Why you need to watch: This is not essentially the battle Meyer needed – she’s been speaking a very long time in regards to the unification title match – and that would not carry her any nearer to that. The 31-year-old Mayer (16-0, 5 KO), who’s defending her WBO and IBF junior light-weight titles, took an enormous step when she beat Maeva Hamdoush for the IBF title final November. Han (18-4-1, 1 KO) does not supply the identical problem, nevertheless it’s an opportunity to see the place her progress has continued.

What’s at stake: For Han, that is the following shot for an opportunity on the belt. As for Meyer, it is holding her profession path — and a possible 130-pound undisputed battle in opposition to Alycia Baumgardner or Hyun Mi Choi — on observe.


#6 Tony Harrison vs. Sergio Garcia (Showtime, 10 p.m. ET)

Why you need to watch: The 31-year-old Harrison (28-3-1, 21 KO) hasn’t received a battle since beating Jermell Charlo in 2018. Since then, he is misplaced to Charlo—and the WBC middleweight belt within the course of—and tied in opposition to Bryant. Perilla. Now he faces 29-year-old Garcia (33-1, 14 KO), whose solely loss got here to Fundora final December.

What’s at stake: It is a battle between two males attempting to revive their careers in a division that is getting increasingly more crowded and an opportunity to maintain up and interact within the dialog under Charlo and Tszyu and winner Lubin-Fundora and presumably Castano within the division.

One of the best of the remainder:

  • Dina Thorslund vs Newarks Carreno for the Girls’s Bantamweight Championship at Thorslund

  • Junto Nakatani vs. Ryota Yamauchi for Nakatani’s Flyweight Championship

  • Maribel Ramirez vs Daniela Asenjo for the WBA Girls’s Bantamweight Championship Ramirez

  • Giovanni Santillan vs Giovanni Barazza, welterweight, 10 rounds