Hey CSFMB, I follow boxing. Probably in part because it's difficult. It's like a challenge keeping track of the matchmaking, belts, rankings, results, since as you know boxing is our most capitalistic sport and therefore a goddamned mess.

Anybody else out there care? I write emails to pals and I KNOW they don't care. So I'll try it here.

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TONIGHT! Boxing on both premium networks. Pretty much all in the same division (Jr. Welterweight, 140lb)

HBO has the better card, and I don't think anyone besides me is paying for Showtime (you get Ray Donovan! you animals!) so that works out well. It has Lucas Matthyse, who's the bomb. He's in against Victor Postol, who I can't say I've seen but has a good if lacking record. made a good showing for himself once on HBO before and is one of those super-tall guys who are always kinda interesting. He's earned the shot for this belt so good on Golden Boy for actually setting up the match. I think Matthyse will crack him in the ribs a lot.

The undercard has a well-regarded prospect (who I also don't think I've seen...) in a good step up against Humberto Soto, who's been on TV forever (and is legitimately in the top 15 still) though hasn't fought in over a year.

Showtime has...Adrien Broner. So I expect that to be the fight I fast-forward, maybe after looking to see if he lost again. I wouldn't mind seeing him lose every time I watch. This isn't a bad matchup though, he's back down to his appropriate weight class (still don't understand why he jumped all the way to Welterweight) and facing another top-15 or so guy from Russia, who had only 1 loss where he got sorta jobbed against Jesse Vargas...but is also chronically inactive (this is his 4th fight in 3 years). He'll probably get jobbed in this one too, but here's hoping instead Broner just keeps losing. If you care, this one is for a belt too, which is ridiculous to the point where you shouldn't care.

Why so many belts at stake tonight? because Danny Garcia finally jumped to Welterweight (after kinda doing so for years already at catchweights)...here's the Ring's latest RANKINGS for reference.

Jr. Welterweight / Super Lightweight (140lbs)
(championship vacant with Garcia gone)
1. Matthyse
2. Lamont Peterson (just lost to Garcia, got trucked by Matthyse a couple years ago)
3. Ruslan Provodnikov (lost to Matthyse in his last bout, another war)
4. Terrence Crawford
5. Broner (this seems high, pretty weak resume at 140)
6. Vargas (moved up and lost that wacky fight to Tim Bradley, unsure where he's sticking)
7. Postol

Crawford is the dude who's in line for bigger fights, cleaned out Lightweight in 2014 and is a top p4p-er candidate. Also he's not in the Haymon/PBC stable, which helps grease the wheels for a future showdown with Matthyse (provided he wins). I think the only Haymon dudes on that list are Broner and Peterson, and hell they can meet too that's fine. As we've seen though the PBC cards have gotten damned soft lately...

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Ring walks on the HBO main event right now. Undercards of both shows marred by bad scores already, but hopefully this fight is enjoyable.

Wow, so it turns out Viktor Postol is kind of a monster. He not only won but KO'd Matthyse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uybPXAhNp5Q

The fight wasn't too great because Postol took after his Ukrainan countryman Vladimir Klitschko and held too much. But finally the ref got through to him to stop and it opened up things later on. By then Matthyse was kind of on fumes and obviously discouraged that the clean shots he did land earlier weren't doing much. Especially bad since he had to usually get a Postol jab to get inside in the first place being so much shorter. The KO wasn't a killer shot or anything, Matthyse could've gotten up but was just a beaten man and knew he couldn't come back in the last couple rounds so he just stayed down. Bummer for one of my favorite guys in the sport.

The undercard was meh but evenly matched. Unsurprisingly the young guy got generous scoring but it wasn't like he didn't deserve the win over Soto.

I did not watch the Broner fight after reading that he won convincingly but didn't even show that much against a guy who did nothing. Then after the match he said he matured, made a bad Caitlin Jenner joke and 'called out' a guy who's a total nobody for some reason. Like I said last week the way this needs to go is Broner to face Lamont Peterson on PBC, and more importantly Postol vs. Terrence Crawford on HBO. I heard speculation that Crawford could more handle Postol's height, but he's still shorter (Matthyse 5'6.6", Crawford 5'8", Postol 5'11"). Crawford is fighting on 10/24.

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