This coming July 4th weekend has a light calendar when it comes to combat sports. In boxing, that was not always the case, as July 4th was looked upon as a weekend for patriotism and the fights. Legendary Heavyweight Champion Jack Johnson made two successful title defenses on July 4th, in 1910 against James J. Jeffries and in 1912 against “Fireman” Jim Flynn. The Jeffries fight was the very first fight promoted as “The Fight of The Century” as Jeffries was the undefeated former champion coming back to regain the title. In 1919, the great Jack Dempsey took the belt from Jess Willard in one of the most violent World Heavyweight Title fights of all-time, and in 1921 Dempsey fought Frenchman Georges Carpentier for what was boxing’s first ever gate of over a million dollars. Even in more recent times, the UFC has had some of the biggest matches in their history on July 4th weekend, including Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva’s 2012 re-match with Chael Sonnen and his 2013 knock–out loss to Chris Weidman. In 2010, the UFC gave us Brock Lesnar versus Shane Carwin, and they also ran their “fight expo” weekend around the July 4th holidays. That is why this weekend is looking light, as there are no big boxing events and the UFC is holding off their big UFC 189 show for the following week. The sport books have posted some boxing odds for this weekend, but nothing with truly competitive lines. Below is the review. The National Stadium in Dublin, Ireland has a full 10-fight card scheduled for Saturday that already has two bouts posted at the books. The first is the Super Flyweight 10-round main event for the WBO Inter-Continental Title as undefeated Jamie Conlan (13-0) defends his belt for the first time against Mexico’s Junior Granados (13-2-1). Granados is a huge underdog, paying (+3000), with Conlan returning at (-11000). Granados is still just 22 years old, but he is trying to recover from a rough spell that saw him go (0-2-1) in a three fight stretch. The fact that those setbacks came against less than top notch competition, while Conlan is looking to add the WBO Inter-Continental belt to the European belt he already has. There is no over/under posted for this fight. The other match on the Ireland card at the books now is the Bantamweight 8 rounder scheduled between Csaba Kovacs and Ryan Burnett. Burnett is undefeated at (9-0) and he is a wide (-20000) favorite over the journeyman Kovacs (7-5), who is a big underdog paying (+5000). There is no over/under for this bout yet. The card bears watching at the sport books, as the co-main event features undefeated Tommy Langford (12-0) facing Junior Cesar Avalos (15-4) for the vacant WBO Inter-Continental belt at Middleweight. Also on the card is stand-out Super Featherweight Patrick Hyland (30-1) who is looking to win his fourth fight in a row since his lone loss to Javier Fortuna for the interim WBA World Title. His opponent is still TBD. The books may put up additional lines as we get closer to the weekend and there is a wide variety of international boing competition. But for right now, the Korakuen Hall show in Tokyo, Japan scheduled for Monday July 6th is the only other line up for the weekend. Super Flyweight action at twelve rounds sees highly promising prospect Takuma Inoue (4-0) attempt to win his first regional title as he faces the experienced Mark Anthony Geraldo (31-5-3) for the vacant OPBF title. Inoue is a strong (-1500) favorite over Geraldo, who is returning at (+700). Inoue is 19 years old and is the younger brother of WBC World Light Flyweight Champion Naoya Inoue. Look for him to follow his brother’s fast track success to a world title.
