All boxers made weight for Saturday’s which airs live on DAZN from Matchroom Boxing HQ Garden in Brentwood, Essex, England. In the main event, 2016 Olympic Bronze medalist and current rising contender Joshua Buatsi (14-0, 12KOs) faces Ricards Bolotniks (18-5-1, 8KOs) in a scheduled 12-round light heavyweight title eliminator.
Buatsi weighed 174 ¾ pounds, while Bolotniks tipped the scale at 174 ½ pounds.
Buatsi enjoys a quick ring turnaround, coming off a 4th round knockout of Daniel Blenda Dos Santos this past May in Manchester, England. The 28-year-old from Croydon, London by way of Accra, Ghana entered the pro ranks in 2017 to high expectations, emerging as a feel-good story out of the 2016 Rio Olympics. A combination of injuries, the pandemic and difficulty in finding willing top light heavyweights to step in the ring with him have slightly stalled his career progress, though a win on Saturday will force a sanctioning body to grant him a title shot.
Bolotniks has enjoyed quite a career turnaround after struggling out the gate. The 31-year-old from Riga, Latvia enters riding a seven-fight win streak, including his emerging in the MTK Golden Contract light heavyweight tournament, with wins over Steven Ward, Hosea Burton and Serge Michel to claim top honors.
Below are the weights for the DAZN undercard, which begins Saturday 7:00 p.m. BST/2:00 p.m. ET.
Joe Cordina (12-0, 7KOs), Cardiff, Wales, 134 pounds vs. Joshuah Hernandez (10-3, 8KOs), Chicago, 132 ¼ pounds—10 rounds, lightweight
Michael McKinson (20-0, 2KOs), Portsmouth, England, 146 ½ pounds vs. Przemyslaw Runowski (19-1, 5KOs), Slupsk, Poland, 146 ¼ pounds—12 rounds, welterweight
Hopey Price (4-0, 1KO), Leeds, England, 123 ¾ pounds vs. Claudio Grande (5-0, 3KOs), Toscana, Italy, 120 ½ pounds—6 rounds, junior featherweight
Kash Farooq (15-1, 6KOs), Glasgow, 117 ½ pounds vs. Luis Gerardo Castillo (28-2, 18KOs), Jiqulipilco, Mexico, 116 ¼ pounds—10 rounds, bantamweight
Below are the weights for the rest of the undercard.
Raymond Ford (8-0-1, 4KOs), Camden, New Jersey, 126 pounds vs. Reece Bellotti (14-4, 12KOs), Watford, England, 125 ¼ pounds—10 rounds, featherweight
Zelfa Barrett (25-1, 15KOs), Manchester, England, 136 ¼ pounds vs. Viorel Simion (22-6, 9KO), Bucharest, Romania, 139 ¾ pounds—8 rounds, junior welterweight
–boxingscene.com
