By: Michael Kane
It’s Friday night fight night this week as WBO middleweight champion Demetrious ‘Boo Boo’ Andrade makes the first defence of his title when he takes on Artur Akavov (19-2, 8 KOs).
Andrade won the belt by beating Walter Kautondokwa for the vacant title after champion Billy Joe Saunders vacated due to facing a ban for an adverse drug test.
The 30 year old Andrade (26-0, 16 KOs) will be looking to put on a show at the Madison Square Garden Theater on a card that features several title bouts.
The 33 year old Russian, Akavov, beat Gonzalo Gaston Coria by unanimous decision in May 2018. He is a former WBO European champion and has faced former champ Billy Joe Saunders, falling to an unanimous decision defeat in 2016.
Andrade will be looking to put on a good performance to open up the chance of unifying the division against the likes of Canelo Alvarez, Rob Brant and Daniel Jacobs.
Irishman TJ Doheny (20-0, 14 KOs) defends his IBF super bantamweight title when he takes on Japan’s Ryohei Takahashi (16-3-1, 6 KOs).
This will be Doheny’s first defence having won the belt in August last year by unanimous decision against Takahashi’s compatriot, Ryosuke Iwasa.
Takahashi is on a 5 fight win streak which includes winning the IBF Pan Pacific super bantamweight title.
The third world title fight on the card will see Amanda Serrano (35-1-1, 26 KOs) bid to become world champion in a 7th weight class. Serrano will face Era Voraberger (24-5, 11 KOs) for the vacant WBO super flyweight title. The Austrian, Voraberger has also won a couple of titles at different weight classes.
Also on the card, and likely to be chief support to the main event is the ever popular Jorge Linares (45-4, 28 KOs) who is on the trail of another world title shot. Linares takes on Mexican Pablo Cesar Cano (31-7, 21 KOs). Both men will be fighting for Cano’s WBC International Silver title.
Another former world champion Chris Algieri (22-3, 8 KOs) faces Daniel Gonzalez (17-1, 7 KOs) on the card.
The event will be shown live on DAZN in the U.S and on Sky Sports in the UK.