After weeks of speculation, it has now been confirmed that Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez will face Chris Billam-Smith in the headline fight of the November Riyadh Season card in a showdown for the unified WBA and WBO cruiserweight titles. Yet, for the event billed as ‘Latino Night, there has been two eye-catching changes to the undercard.
Initial reports for the event revealed that undefeated lightweight title hopeful William Zepeda would take on former unified champion George Kambosos Jr. in preparation for an eventual bid for Shakur Stevenson’s WBC crown. Meanwhile Bektemir Melikuziev would collide with undefeated Guatemalan Lester Martinez with the victor sure to edge closer to a shot at the super-middleweight titles.
Both of those bouts came in addition to contests between former unified super-lightweight conqueror Jose Carlos Ramirez and Arnold Barboza Jr in yet another affair with a world title shot on the line, whilst Oscar Duarte is scheduled to face Chicago’s Kenneth Sims Jr. in the welterweight division to cap off a plethora of well-matched clashes on the main card.
Although, in an interview with iFL TV, a disappointed Eddie Hearn, who now promotes Shakur Stevenson, let slip that Zepeda would not be taking on his Australian lightweight rival whilst sharing his frustrations at the fact that the fight between Zepeda and Stevenson had been put on ice.
“We were a bit disappointed because I talked to Shakur, Josh Duban, and the guys today, and we were told that [William] Zepeda wouldn’t be available in October, November, or September because he was having a child.
“Now, we’re hearing I believe he’s going to fight Tevin Farmer. I thought he [Zepeda] was going to fight George Kambosos, but he’s not fighting George Kambosos. I hear it’s Tevin Farmer. We were ready to go straight into that Zepeda fight, but maybe they’re not. So, we’ll see,”
Last night, the event was officially announced and it was done so with some obvious absentees as Hearn’s rumour was confirmed and George Kambosos Jr. was dropped from the bill, as was Melikuziev’s scrap with Martinez.
Zepeda, who is ranked as the number one contender with all four sanctioning bodies, will instead fight Tevin Farmer, former holder of the IBF super-featherweight crown, despite the fact that Farmer is coming off of a loss to Raymond Muratalla.
Furthermore, a second world title contest has been added to the bill as Puerto Rican minimumweight sensation Oscar Collazo hopes to make a fourth consecutive defence of the 105lb WBO strap against Mexico’s Edwin Cano Hernandez
Whilst the decision to drop Kambosos card is yet to be fully understood, Lester Martinez is set to fight tonight on Pro Box TV, so his fight could be added at a later date, providing he is able to overcome Joeshon James without any hiccups or injury.
Zurdo-Billam-Smith will take place on November 16th in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and despite the quality of the card, the event will not be a pay-per-view one.
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