FNF starts a little late tonight thanks to high school basketball and will wrap up early on account of the WBC. Delvin Rodriguez is the headliner of the card from the Mohegan Sun, facing off against Shamone Alvarez.
Teddy Atlas talks to Rodriguez about getting back on TV for the first time since his fight with Oscar Diaz. He feels he is back in the correct mindset when he steps in the ring, putting the tragedy with Diaz behind him.
U.S. Olympian Demetrius Andrade is making his ESPN debut and Bernard Hopkins is in studio with Brian Kenny.
The Executioner confirms that he is looking to move up in weight and take on Tomasz Adamek at cruiserweight. He still has some small hopes that Joe Calzaghe will fight him again, but he's not counting on it.
The first televised fight pits Demetrius Andrade, the brightest prospect from a disappointing 2008 U.S. Olympic boxing squad, in a four-round junior middleweight fight against Tom Joseph. About halfway through the first round, Andrade starts letting loose with body shots and uppercuts, and Joseph is simply helpless against the onslaught. Andrade wins by KO at 1:56 of the first round.
Andrade moves to 3-0 with 3 KOs, and he'll actually be back on FNF in just two weeks. Hopkins thinks Andrade has all the tools but needs to step up his level of competition.
Kenny and Hopkins review the Juan Manuel Marquez-Juan Diaz fight as well as the Chris John-Rocky Juarez bout. Hopkins thought John deserved to win the fight, and also supports the idea of a John-Juarez rematch.
Next up is a six-round welterweight fight between Raymond Serrano and Jay Krupp. Atlas thinks Serrano has been in pretty soft thus far, but also says Krupp has been in even softer.
Serrano's defense is not impressive but his punching power is. He scores an early knockdown but also gets tagged with some big shots.
Hopkins checks in from the studio and states that Serrano is making the fight too difficult for himself by chasing the home run shot and ignoring his fundamentals. There's also some pretty funny video of Mike Greenberg training with Atlas. Good stuff.
The fight actually goes all six rounds, with both men swinging wildly and connecting with a few bombs right at the end of the final frame. We'll see how the judges saw it.
The judges score it 58-55 and 60-53 twice, and Serrano wins by unanimous decision.
Back to the studio one more time, Kenny reviews the last few fights for Adamek. Hopkins seems to be serious about moving up and trying to make a fight happen. He does a pretty nice job selling Adamek as a threat due to moving up in weight. B-Hop would look to be about 185 pounds, where he feels he'd still have speed and power.
Hopkins says Golden Boy is working on Adamek and Calzaghe, though he thinks Joe-Cal will stay retired.
Posted by The Franchise
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