Fight Weekend Preview
The action opens on Friday as the Overtime Boxing series in Atlanta continues. In the evening's main event, Baltimore, Maryland native Lorenzo Simpson puts his undefeated record on the line 13-0 (7), against veteran Vladimir Hernandez 13-5 (6). Hernandez is best known for scoring consecutive upsets in 2020 and 2021 over Alfredo Angulo and then former, unified Jr Middleweight champ "Jrock" Julian Williams. Hernandez was stopped by Jesus Ramos on his last outing in February 2022. Simpson picked up a win on the Davis-Garcia undercard, taking a lopsided unanimous points decision over Pachino Hill.
On the undercard portion, undefeated Greek KO artist Andreas Katzourakis, 10-0 (8), takes on Houston native Raphael Igbokwe, who comes off his strong showing against Israil Madrimov on the Bam Rodriguez-Cristian Gonzalez card in April. Fellow Houston native Luis Acosta looks to keep his winning ways going as he battles undefeated Puerto Rican puncher Christian Barreto Gonzalez in a six-round lightweight affair.
The action moves to Poland for the big fight between the big men as unified Heavyweight champ Oleksandr Usyk 20-0 (13), follows up his two consecutive wins over Anthony Joshua by fighting fellow British big man Daniel Dubois for three of the four heavyweight crowns. Dubois, 19-1 (18), has won four bouts, all by KO and all within four rounds since his 2020 loss to Joe Joyce.
An intriguing undercard bout features undefeated Ukrainian lightweight Denys Berinch, 17-0 (9), against former world title challenger Anthony Yigit, 27-3-1 (10). Yigit is coming off a tune-up fight win over Jacob Quinn, in his home nation of Sweden via a four-round decision after his one-sided but entertaining loss to Keyshawn Davis in April.
The action moves back to the US and again the big man is the main attraction in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as Jared "Big Baby" Anderson, 15-0 (14) from Toledo, Ohio, takes on Ukrainian heavyweight Andrii Rudenko 35-6 (21) in what amounts to a get-right fight for Anderson. "Big Baby" had a less than spectacular performance in his last time out. He picked up a wide, but unspectacular UD over former world champion Charles Martin just last month. The undercard features "Shu Shu" Bruce Carrington, who takes a major step up as he battles Angel Antonio Contreras. The rest of the card is heavyweight-heavy and features Olympic gold medalist and undefeated prospect Bakhodir Jalolov. Plus a highly intriguing contest between 17-1 (13), Efe Ajagba, who has picked up two consecutive wins, including his most recent, a 10-round UD over Stephan Shaw in January, takes on undefeated Kazakh heavyweight KO artist Zhan Kossobutskiy 19-0 (18), who is largely unknown in the US and has fought predominantly in Germany the last few years. He has picked up wins over Joey Dawejko and Johann Duhaupas.
