Miguel Madueno (31-3 28 KOs) will be the opponent for light welterweight Oscar Duarte (28-2-1, 22 KOs) to step in as the sub after Regis Prograis suffered a shoulder injury on February 15th at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California and live on DAZN. The fight card starts at 8:00 PM ET / 1:00 AM GMT / 2:00 AM UK time, with Duarte vs. Madueno main event ringwalks expected at 11:00 PM ET / 4:00 AM GMT / 5:00 AM UK time.
Golden Boy Promotions are gambling that Duarte can make a transition from the training he’s done for WBA and WBC 140-lb champion Prograis to taking on Madueno on 10 days notice. That could be a mistake on their part.
This is not the type of opponent any fighter should take without a full training camp, but you have to respect the tough Mexican Duarte to go through with it. This fight will show what he’s about and give fans at home an exciting battle. This is a much better opponent than Duarte’s original match against the 36-year-old Prograis, who hasn’t won in two years.
Madueno gave Keyshawn Davis pure trouble in a life-and-death struggle for the Top Rank-promoted fighter on July 6th last year, forcing him to turn the fight into a WWE wrestling match to survive the tough Mexican volume puncher.
Davis looked like he was having a nervous breakdown in the ring, trying to deal with Madueno’s pressure and output. Keyshawn looked like he went full-on professional wrestling move, throwing the rulebook out the window.
The Davis Scare
The Norfolk, Virginia native Davis should have been docked points left & right, but he got the A-side treatment and used those tactics all night against Madueno.
I lost track of how many wrestling moves Keyshawn used in that fight that should have led to point deductions. At some point, it looked like he was going to use a suplex against Madueno, and I just knew that would finally make the ref pull the plug on the fight.
That was the weirdest boxing match I’ve ever seen, but it gave me a glimpse of Keyshawn and how dangerous he perceived Madueno. He’d gone into the contest trying to intimidate Madueno by putting his fist against his chin during the face-off at the press conference and disrespecting him to try to gain an edge.
“I am excited to fight Madueño because he will be a fighter that will stand in front of me. It’s going to be an all-out war. Without saying names, there are a lot of guys out there ducking and who do not want to fight me. But I will continue on my path to fight the best. Thank you to everyone for the support,” said Oscar Duarte. “I am really excited for this fight night, and I am excited to headline my first show as the red corner here in America. I worked really hard and I am excited for this opportunity with Golden Boy.”
“I want to thank Golden Boy for the opportunity they have presented us and Alex Campanovo who has done extraordinary things with my career,” said Miguel Madueño. “I ask the fans to keep an eye on this new main event, which will be much more eye-appealing than the previous fight in place. This will be a fight between two knockout artists. What people are going to see on Saturday is a war and two gentlemen.”
“The main event of the night is an all-Mexican showdown that is guaranteed to be an absolute war in the ring,” said Chairman and CEO Oscar De La Hoya. “Rarely does a late replacement actually add excitement to the main event but this is one of those rare occasions. Duarte and Madueño will give the fans nonstop action.”
Duarte vs Madueno fight card
- Oscar Duarte vs. Miguel Madueno , 12 rounds, super lightweight
- Darius Fulghum vs. Winfred Harris, 10 rounds, super middleweight – Fulghum’s WBA Intercontinental title
- Ricardo Sandoval vs. Saleto Henderson , 10 rounds, flyweight – Sandoval’s WBC Silver title
- Kenneth Sims Jr vs. Kendo Castaneda , 10 rounds, welterweight
- Joel Iriarte vs. Steven Thomas , 6 rounds, welterweight
- Yair Benjamin Gallardo-Lozano vs. Carlos Miranda, 8 rounds, light heavyweight
- Daniel Garcia vs. Francisco Javier Grande Pacheco , 6 rounds, lightweight
- Petr Khamukov vs. Dayan Depestre , 8 rounds, middleweight
- Gael Cabrera vs. Roberto Pucheta , 6 rounds, super bantamweight
- Fabian Guzman vs. TBA , 6 rounds, middleweight
- Javier Meza vs. Rickey Smith , 4 rounds, super lightweight