Fury vs Hammer, Frampton vs Avalos, more: Boxing TV schedule for February 27-28

Friday, February 27

ESPN2, 9:00 pm EST, Cletus Seldin vs Johnny Garcia, Raymond Serrano vs Jeremy Bryan. Back to the normal ol’ FNF grind, no Boxcino this week. Seldin is an unbeaten Brooklyn prospect nicknamed the “Hebrew Hammer,” which you wouldn’t necessarily expect of a fellow name of “Cletus.” He’s 28 and is coming off of a December win over Bayan Jargal, one of those FNF heroes whose expiration seems to come rapidly. Garcia is 0-1-1 in his last two fights. You may remember him from a ShoBox upset of Yordenis Ugas in 2012, which led to him getting demolished by Angelo Santana eight months later, also on ShoBox. The Holland, Michigan, native knows all about wooden shoes and the Tulip Festival. BLH will have live coverage.

TV Pública (ARG), 10:00 pm EST, Cristian Fabian Rios vs Martin Fidel Rios.

FOX Sports 1, 10:30 pm EST, Pablo Cesar Cano vs Juan Carlos Abreu, Diego De La Hoya vs Manuel Roman, Taishan Dong vs Roy McCrary. Cano-Abreu is a substitute main event, as this card was meant to be headlined by Randy Caballero’s first title defense back at home, but he was hurt and had to pull out. Cano was drafted in after a first round knockout of Jorge Silva on February 7 left him fresh and ready for a quick turnaround. But Abreu isn’t without danger. He hasn’t really beaten anyone, but he went 10 with Humberto Soto last March in his only pro loss, and he’s got 17 stoppages in 18 wins. De La Hoya will be facing the guy that was sold to you as a contender for Leo Santa Cruz last September, and TAISHAN will be back against some slug. BLH will have live coverage.

Saturday, February 28

BoxNation (UK), 2:00 pm EST, Tyson Fury vs Christian Hammer, Chris Eubank Jr vs Dmitry Chudinov. This is yet another fight advertised as potentially being Fury’s last tune-up before his first world title shot, which has been the narrative for a couple of years now. The time lost when he was waiting for David Haye to actually fight didn’t help. Hammer isn’t a real threat, despite the fight’s “Risky Business” tag line. I mean, yeah, he could potentially win, but it would be an enormous upset. Hammer has won 10 straight fights. Eubank-Chudinov may be the more interesting fight here in terms of the matchmaking, with Eubank coming off of a competitive loss to Billy Joe Saunders, and Chudinov a sneaky solid fighter who beat make-a-star attempt Patrick Nielsen in Denmark last June to win the interim WBA middleweight title. BLH will have live coverage.

ITV (UK), 5:50 pm EST, Carl Frampton vs Chris Avalos. Barry McGuigan has taken Carl Frampton over to ITV for this fight, a nice looking matchup against Avalos, who turned down a mandatory shot at Guillermo Rigondeaux to take this instead. It probably says a lot about Rigondeaux, good and bad, that someone would rather go on the road to Belfast, against a very good and consistently improving fighter like Frampton. Avalos has won six straight against so-so competition after a second pro stumble in 2011 against Jhonatan Romero, who would go on to briefly hold a world title. Frampton is making the first defense of his IBF super bantamweight belt in this fight, having won the title from Kiko Martinez (who beat Romero) in September. BLH will have live coverage.

UniMas, 11:00 pm EST, Julian Rodriguez vs Raul Tovar. This was supposed to be a Felix Verdejo date, but Verdejo was injured, so it’s not.

Azteca (MEX), 11:30 pm EST, Jackie Nava vs Mayra Alejandra Gomez, Kenia Enriquez vs Melissa McMorrow, Luis Nery vs Jether Oliva.