Despite the rumors, the summer for reigning WBC lightweight king Antonio DeMarco (27-2-1, 20KOs) has just been made official as of yesterday when he signed the contract to face John Molina on September 8th in Oakland, CA. The twelve round championship fight will be broadcast live by HBO. Before that, DeMarco of Tijuana, Mexico, by way of Los Mochis, has signed on to make a voluntary defense against Mexico City’s Daniel “Tremendo” Estrada (28-2-1, 21KOs) on July 28th in a city to be determined. That bout will be televised in Mexico by Televisa. DeMarco’s training camp is well on its way with the lanky southpaw sparring yesterday with welterweight Orlando Lora and 140 pounder Juan Carlos “CheChe” Lopez.
The “SD Kid” Christopher Martin (23-2-3, 6KOs) will once again appear on TV when he matches up against Mexicali, Mexico’s Roberto “Azabache” Castañeda (19-1-1, 14KOs) on ESPN2’s “Friday Night Fights” series. Martin, who after going undefeated for the first five years of his career is 0-2-1 in his last three fights, is looking to get back in the win column against the tough but limited Castañeda. Martin tweeted his next assignment this past weekend and texted that he is more than ready to take on the Mexicali fighter. Martin will have home field advantage since the super bantamweight bout will take place in Corona, CA, just north of San Diego.
No dance partner or city has been found for the seven-time world champion Erik “Terrible” Morales’ (52-8, 36KOs) next bout but it will be in Mexico on Saturday, July 21st. Morales is looking for a non-Mexican with a name as his next opponent in hopes of a decisive win that should put him back in the mix in the junior welterweight division. Also has been said that talks for a possible Morales-Marquez matchup is in talks once again but no official word from the “Terrible” camp. His next bout will be televised in Mexico by Televisa.
Even though mega events like last weekend’s Bradley-Pacquiao make the boxing world go, many times it is small club shows and city rivalries that really get the boxing fans going. Earlier this year, junior welterweights Adrian Vargas (7-0-1, 5KOs) vs. Emmanuel Robles (4-0-1, 2KOs) was a San Diego match up that ended up in a draw while Lester Gonzalez (12-6-4, 6KOs) and James Parison (15-1-1, 4KOs) also fought to an even fight, this one in the super middleweight division. In Tijuana, a crosstown match up was decided by a fifth round TKO when bantamweight Jose “Tigre” Cayetano (12-1, 5KOs) stopped former title challenger Arturo “Fuerte” Badillo (20-4, 18KOs) earlier this month. Now Cayetano has challenged another Tijuana fighter, newly minted WBC USNBC bantamweight champ Hanzel “Tornadito” Martinez (18-0, 15KOs), brother-in-law of now retired Antonio Margarito. In a lesser anticipated match up, Reynaldo “Rey” Russell (6-1-1, 4KOs) has challenged undefeated super bantamweight Christian “Huevo” Bojorquez (7-0, 1KO) while amateur city champ Erick “Tepeyac” Cebreros (1-0) is looking to match up against Carlos “Baby” Castañeda (3-0, 2KOs). We’ll see how many of these bouts come to fruition.