By Jeff Aranow: Dillian Whyte, Bryant Jennings, Oleksandr Gvozdyk, Nicholas Walters and Shakur Stevenson will all be fighting on the undercard of the Terence Crawford vs. Julius Indongo card on ESPN on August 19 at the Pinnacle Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska. In terms of sheer names, this has got to be one of the best fight cards thus far in 2017.
None of those fighters have their opponents picked out as of yet. There all TBA fights at this time. Top Rank obviously is looking for opponents to put in with them. The addition of Whyte suggests that Eddie Hearn is co-promoting the card, because Whyte is one of his fighters.
Even if those fighters are matched against weak opposition. Top Rank put together a great undercard of big names. The best part of all is the fact this is going to be on ESPN. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that ESPN will be able to show all of those fights.
Crawford (31-0, 22 KOs), the WBA, WBC, WBO light welterweight champion, is looking to unify the titles at 140 against IBF champion Indongo (22-0, 11 KOs). It’s a great fight. The winner of the Crawford vs. Indongo match will be the undisputed light welterweight champion.
#5 WBC, #6 IBF, #8 WBO, #12 WBA, Dillian Whyte (20-1, 15 KOs) is interested in fighting for a heavyweight title against WBC champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder, IBF/WBA champion Anthony Joshua or WBO champion Joseph Parker. Whyte’s promoter Eddie Hearn recently offered Wilder $3 million to defend his title against Whyte. Wilder rejected the offer, saying he wants $7 million for the fight.
Hearn hasn’t said anything since Wilder asked for a big bump up in pay. It’s likely that Whyte will take a stay busy fight Whyte is coming off of a very hard fight against former heavyweight world title challenger Dereck Chisora last December. Whyte won the fight by a controversial 12 round split decision in a fight that many boxing fans felt that Chisora should have been given the ‘W.’
Former heavyweight world title challenger Bryant Jennings (19-2, 10 KOs) was recently signed by Top Rank. They’re looking to rebuild the 32-year-old Jennings’ stalled career and get him a world title shot against one of the champions. It would seem likely that Top Rank is hoping to get Jennings a shot at either Wilder or Joshua. Either of those fights would allow Jennings to get a good payday even if he loses, which would seem likely. Jennings is scheduled to fight a 10 round bout on the Crawford vs. Indongo ight card. No word who his opponent will be. It would be nice if Top Rank was to match Jennings against Dillian Whyte, but that probably won’t happen.
Top Rank wants to build Jennings up. Jennings last fought on December 19, 2015 in losing to Luis “King Kong” Ortiz by a 7th round knockout. Before that, Jennings lost to former IBF, IBO, WBA, WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko by a 12 round unanimous decision in April 2015. Jennings fought well against Wladimir and Ortiz. He just wasn’t good enough to beat either of those fighters. The last time Jennings won a fight was 3 years ago in defeating Mike Perez by a 10 12 round split decision on July 26, 2014. That was the best win of Jennings’ career. He also has victories over Artur Szpilka, Bowie Tupou, former WBO heavyweight champion Seirhei Liakhovich, Maurice Byarm and Andrey Fedosov.
Undefeated #2 WBC, #4 WBO, #7 IBF, #9 WBA Oleksandr Gvozdyk (13-0, 11 KOs) will be fighting a 10 round fight on the Crawford-Indongo card against an opponent still to be determined. Gvozdyk is rated highly by the World Boxing Council. He’d like to get a world title shot against WBC 175 lb. champion Adonis Stevenson. However, it’s likely that Gvozdyk will need to a considerable amount of time before he eventually fights for a world title. Stevenson doesn’t frequently fight his No.1 contenders. The last time he fought his mandatory was in 2013, I believe.
In 2015, Ring Magazine stripped Stevenson of his Ring title for failing to fight a top ranked opponent in the last couple of years. Gvozdyk might need to go after another belt. Fighting one of the top contenders in the IBF, WBA or WBO’s top 15 would be ideal for Gvozdyk to put himself in line for eventual shot at those titles. Andre Ward holds those belts right now, but he’ll very likely be vacating them soon after he moves up in weight to cruiserweight or heavyweight. Gvozdyk has looked good recently in stopping Yunieski Gonzalez, Isaac Chilemba, Tommy Karpency and Najib Mohammedi. Those are quality fighters, and Gvozdyk made it look easy in beating each of them.
Former WBA Super World super featherweight champion Nicholas Walters (26-1-1, 21 KOs) will be looking to rebound from his 7th round stoppage loss to Vasyl Lomachenko from last November. That was a bad fight for the 31-year-old Walters, as he was totally outclassed by Lomachenko before quitting in the 7th round. Walters blamed his poor performance on him being out of the ring for 11 months before the fight. Before that fight, Walters was held to a 10 round draw against Jason Sosa in December 2015.
A lot of boxing fans believe that Walters deserved a victory in that fight against Sosa. However, Walters appeared to let 5 rounds slip by before he started to box in the second half of the fight. Walters tried to slug with Sosa, and he wasn’t good enough to take him out. Sosa was landing tremendous shots, and fighting with a lot of motivation. Boxing News 24 scored the Walters-Sosa fight 95-95. Walters’ career has been stuck in the slow lane since after his successful title defense against Miguel Marriaga in June 2015. That was Walters’ last victory of his career. It’s hard to believe 2 years has gone by since Walters last won a fight, because he was viewed as invincible by a lot of boxing fans following his huge wins over Nonito Donaire and Vic Darchinyan in 2014. It just shows you how quickly a fighter’s career can turn sour on them.
2016 U.S Olympian Shakur Stevenson (2-0, 1 KOs) will be making his third fight of his pro career in a 6 round fight against an opponent still to be determined. Stevenson, 20, has looked great since turning pro last April in beating Edgar Brito and Carlos Gaston Suarez.