By Craig Page: Jose ‘Sniper’ Pedraza and Richard Commey will be meeting tonight in the main event of a 10-round fight at light welterweight on ESPN at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Action will start at 10:30 p.m. ET.
This is one of those fights where it almost doesn’t matter who wins because neither guy is going anywhere in the division. Commey & Pedraza are too long in the tooth to capture a world title at 140, and they’re fighting out of their best weight classes.
Pedraza (29-4, 14 KOs) lost to former WBC/WBO 140-lb champion Jose Ramirez last March in a 12 round unanimous decision defeat. The loss for the former two-division world champion Pedraza was his second since moving up to 140 in 2019 and a clear sign that he doesn’t belong in this weight class.
Fortunately for the 33-year-old Pedraza, he’ll be taking on the 35-year-old former IBF lightweight champion Commey (30-4, 27 KOs), who will be making his debut in the 140-lb division tonight.
Commey lost his last fight to Vasyl Lomachenko in a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision last December. The only reason Commey wasn’t knocked out is that Lomachenko carried him the last five rounds after having him on the brink of a knockout in the seventh.
Prediction
Pedraza is the superior fighter of the two and should have a relatively easy time winning a 12 round unanimous decision over Commey tonight. As long as Pedraza doesn’t get clipped by one of Commey’s big power shots, he should be alright in this fight.
Commey should have stayed at 135, as he wasn’t cutting the mustard in that weight class with his recent losses to Lomachenko and Teofimo Lopez. I’m not sure what Commey thinks will be different for him in going up to 140. It’s a bizarre move if you ask me.
In the chief support fight, heavyweight Jared Anderson (11-0, 11 KOs) will be looking to pick up his 12th consecutive knockout against Miljan Rovcanin (24-2, 16 KOs).
The 22-year-old Anderson helped WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury with sparring for his trilogy fight with Deontay Wilder last year. Fury was so impressed with his skills of Anderson that he’s saying that he’s a future world champion.
It remains to be seen, as Top Rank has matched the young Anderson against cannon fodder his entire career, and we don’t know if he can take a punch. Anderson fights defensively, and it’s questionable whether he can cut it against B-level opposition. If not, he won’t be the first heavyweight that was overhyped by fans and his promoters.
Rounding out the televised portion of the card, 202o Olympian heavyweight Richard Torrez Jr. (2-0, 2 KOs) faces Marco Antonio Canedo (4-2, 2 KOs) in a six-round fight.
