World championship boxing comes to North Texas this Saturday night when the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco hosts a packed card of fights. Topping the bill are four weight world champs and Mexican-American boxing icon Mikey Garcia. Across the ring from Garcia will be Las Vegan Jessie Vargas, who is no scrub himself. Vargas is a former WBO welterweight world champ who took the legendary Manny Pacquiao the distance. Garcia is coming off his first career defeat, this one to DeSoto’s Errol Spence. This promises to be an all-action dust-up at 147 lbs.
The stacked undercard features world title fights at flyweight (112 lbs) and super-flyweight (115 lbs). The latter contest pits Kal Yafai, the champion from England, against former pound-for-pound No. 1, Nicaragua’s Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez. This fight has the potential to erupt into an all-out war fought with speed, precision, and high-level technique. If The Managua man has anything left at the back end of a glittering career, he might just wrest the title from the former Olympian.
Big names and blue-chip prospects are littered throughout the long list of bouts coming Saturday night. Joseph Parker is a former heavyweight world champion and was the first man to take Anthony Joshua the full 12 rounds. He has a stay-busy 10-round fight against Shawndell Winters. Look out for young up-and-comers Alex Espino and Diego Pacheco. The best fighter on the card might just be Israil Madrimov. This guy is 154 lbs of skill, power, and menace. Expect the Uzbek to improve his record to five KOs out of five wins. He’ll be a world champion before he’s had 10 fights.
