Vargas vs Dulorme, Beterbiev vs Johnson & Miller vs Adamek – Weigh-in Results

By Boxing News - 10/05/2018 - Comments

Image: Vargas vs Dulorme, Beterbiev vs Johnson & Miller vs Adamek - Weigh-in Results

By Jim Dower: Jessie Vargas, Artur Beterbiev and Jarrell Miller Miller all weighed in on Friday for their fights this Saturday night on DAZN. The most intriguing thing about Friday’ weigh-in was the huge weight for Miller (21-0-1, 18 KOs), who weighed in at 317 pounds for his fight against 41-year-old Adamek.

For his part, Adamek (53-5, 27 KOs) weighed 227 pounds. That’s a 90 pound difference in weight between Miller, 30, and Adamek. Talk about your mismatches. It looks bad that Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn, who is the promoter for this card, put together so many mismatches.

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Miller-Adamek is especially bad and is a fight that is just asking for trouble. Adamek has never had the true size to fight at heavyweight in the first place, and now that he’s old at 41, he doesn’t belong inside the ring with world class fighters, even flawed ones like ‘Big Baby.’

Former 140 and 147 pound champion Jessie Vargas weighed in at 147 pounds, and his opponent journeyman Thomas Dulorme weighed in at 146.4 pounds.

IBF light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev (12-0, 12 KOs) weighed in 174.8 pounds for his title defense against Callum Johnson (17-0, 12 KOs), who is promoted by Hearn. Johnson weighed in at 174.8 lbs.

WBA super bantamweight champion Danny Roman weighed 121.6 pounds, and his opponent Gavin McDonnell weighed 121.8 lbs.

Jessie Vargas (28-2-1, 10 KOs) will be trying to get off on the right foot this Saturday night in his fight against Thomas Dulorme (24-3, 16 KOs) in match for the vacant WBC Silver welterweight title on Hearn’s DAZN streaming service at the Wintrust Arena in Chicago. Illinois.

Vargas wants to use a win over Dulorme as a catapult to a title shot against WBC welterweight champion Shawn Porter. Dulorme has fought for a world title in the past in getting stopped by Terence Crawford. Other than that, Dulorme is known for having beaten by Luis Abregu and Yordenis Ugas. Vargas might get a title shot against Porter if for no other reason than him being well known to the casual boxing fans for his past fights against Manny Pacquiao, Sadam Ali, Tim Bradley, Adrien Broner, Antonio DeMarco, Anton Novikov, Khabib Allakhverdiev, Ray Narh and Wale Omotoso.

Vargas lost to Pacquiao and Bradley. Against Broner, Vargas fought to a 12 round draw. So in Vargas’s fights that really count, his record is 0-2-1. That’s not too good, is it? It would be better for Vargas for him to prove himself against someone talented in the welterweight division before he fights for a world title again, because he’s not ready right now to be fighting someone in Porter’s class. Vargas didn’t look very good in his recent 12 round draw against Adrien Broner last April, and he probably should have lost that fight given how strong Broner was in the championship rounds.

Hearn’s DAZN card this Saturday night has one interesting fight between IBF light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev and Callum Johnson. This is by far the most compelling fight on paper on the entire card. Everything else is largely mismatches and/or obscure fighters that few boxing fans have ever heard of. Beterbiev-Johnson is the one fight where the match will have fireworks from start to finish. The rest of the fights are pretty disappointing. Here’s what fans get to see this Saturday night on Hearn’s DAZN kickoff streaming card:

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– Jessie Vargas vs. Thomas Dulorme – This is a likely mismatch with Vargas beating up on journeyman level fighter Dulorme.
Artur Beterbiev vs. Callum Johnson – Beterbiev defends his IBF light heavyweight title against an inexperienced knockout artist in 33-year-old Johnson.

– Jarrell ‘Big Baby’ Miller vs. Tomasz Adamek – 30-year-old Miller faces 41-year-old former two-division world champion Adamak, who is way past his prime and fightig a guy with a lot of power.

– Danny Roman vs. Gavin McDonnell – WBA super bantamweight champion Roman, who Hearn recently signed for his DAZN platform, fights Matchroom Sport stable fighter McDonnell (20-1-2, 5 KOs) in an in house fight. Considered by many boxing fans as the less talented of the McDonnell brothers, the 32-year-old Gavin tried stepping it up last year against Rey Vargas, but was soundly beaten by him.

Hearn believes the 29-year-old Vargas has the kind of talent that will enable him to win another world title at 147 soon. Vargas lost his WBO belt to Manny Pacquiao in 2016 in 12 round decision defeat. Vargas as fought just twice against Aaron Herrera and Adrien Broner. Vargas fought to a draw against Broner, and he didn’t exhibit any signs of a fighter that is capable of winning a true world title. WBC Silver welterweight belt is little more than a trinket title, and not the real thing. For Vargas to win a real title at 147, he’ll need to to through Errol Spence Jr., Shawn Porter, Manny Pacquiao, Keith Thurman or Terence Crawford. Vargas is not going to beat any of those guys obviously, so Hearn signed a fighter to hi DAZN streaming service that is only going to be useful to him for him to one day get a title shot.

Hearn signed an eight year, $1 billion deal with DAZN to have his fighters compete on this platform. It’s unknown why DAZN chose a British promoter who has no experience in the American market in promoting and has a miniscule stable of U.S fighters. It looks to some boxing fans like DAZN didn’t think this through clearly when looking for promoter to stream boxing. This move would work in the UK, a Hearn’s fighters are mostly from that area of the world and aren’t well known in the U.S. Hearn hopes to change that by having many of his British fighter’s fights streamed on DAZN in the U.S. However, it’s going to be difficult for Hearn to gain any real traction with the American fans in watching his fighters from another part of the world. Hearn needs a lot of U.S and Mexican fighters if he wants to be successful, but thus far he’s been unable to sign them. Jessie Vargas is one of the small handful of fighters that Hearn has signed, and unfortunately he’s not a major talent and is little more than a gatekeeper level fighter at 147.

Hearm wants to fight Saul Canelo, Alvarez, Gennady Golovkin, Deontay Wilder, Mikey Garcia, Adrien Broner, the Charlo brothers and many, many more. Hearn hasn’t been able to get those guys to sign with him. He did sign cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk, Danny Roman, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Daniel Jacobs and Jarrell Miller. However, those fighters aren’t stars in the U.S, and likely never will be. Usyk has loads of talent, but he’s a pure boxer and doesn’t have much punching power. Usyk’s fighting style is more like watching fencing than a boxing match. Usyk steps forward and jabs and then pulls back like someone in the fencing sport. It doesn’t make great television sometimes. The American boxing fans like to see sluggers, not boxers. Hearn doesn’t seem to have any idea what the American fan are interested in seeing, and that’s the problem.

“This is open season for fighters in the U.S.,” Hearn said to ESPN.com. “If you’re out there, if you don’t have a promotional contract, if you’re a world-class fighter, we want you. If you’re a world champion no more fighting once a year. No more waiting on your date. We’ve got the dates, the money and the platform to give you regular championship contests.”

Image: Vargas vs Dulorme, Beterbiev vs Johnson & Miller vs Adamek - Weigh-in Results

Image: Vargas vs Dulorme, Beterbiev vs Johnson & Miller vs Adamek - Weigh-in Results

Image: Vargas vs Dulorme, Beterbiev vs Johnson & Miller vs Adamek - Weigh-in Results

Image: Vargas vs Dulorme, Beterbiev vs Johnson & Miller vs Adamek - Weigh-in Results