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Axum Ezana

Axum Ezana

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Billy Joe Saunders could land on the Canelo Sept. 17 undercard

While Golden Boy officials finalized a deal for Canelo Alvarez to face WBO junior middleweight titleholder Liam Smith on Sept. 17, another name came up: WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders.

Frank Warren, who promotes Smith, also handles Saunders, and Golden Boy has had talks with Warren about putting Saunders on the Sept. 17 undercard as a possible prelude to Saunders (23-0, 12 knockouts) and Canelo (47-1-1, 33 KOs) meeting up in the future, Golden Boy VP Eric Gomez told RingTV.com on Friday.

“We’ve had a couple discussions with Frank Warren because he also has Liam Smith,” Gomez said in a phone interview. “We’ve had a couple of discussions but nothing has been agreed upon. There’s no commitment yet. There’s just been a couple of conversations so we’ll see what happens.”

A fight with the chirpy Saunders at 160 pounds would obviously help Alvarez acclimate himself to the middleweight limit in preparation for a potential showdown with unified middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin in 2017 while also giving him a title.

Gomez said his attention has been focused more of late on finalizing a deal to put undefeated Cuban heavyweight Luis Ortiz (25-0, 22 KOs) on the Sept. 17 undercard against Alexander Ustinov (33-1, 24 KOs) for a WBA secondary title. Gomez is close to wrapping up a deal, he said. The winner of Gomez-Ustinov is in line to face whomever emerges from Tyson Fury’s rematch with Wladimir Klitschko that was pushed back from July because of an injury to Fury. “There’s a couple of details that are being worked out,” Gomez said of Ortiz-Ustinov. “But it’s normal stuff. I’m very confident that we’ll be able to get it done.”

Golden Boy is also nearing completion of a deal for the Sept. 17 venue with T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, the leading candidates with an announcement possibly to come next week, Gomez said.

Canelo wants to fight three times this year and Golden Boy is targeting a possible return for him on December 10 if he is successful against Smith and doesn’t sustain any injuries or cuts, Gomez said. One of the ideas being bandied about is to have him fight on regular HBO and not PPV. “It’s not confirmed yet,” Gomez said of the move back to HBO. “That would depend on HBO. But yeah, whenever we can get him on the network it’s great.”
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Guillermo Jones, Amir Imam return tonight in Pittsburgh

Guillermo Jones and Amir Imam return to action tonight in separate stay-busy bouts at Teamsters Hall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Jones, a former cruiserweight beltholder, will take on Garrett Wilson in a scheduled six-round bout. Imam, a once-beaten junior welterweight prospect, faces veteran Wilfredo Acuna in a six-round bout.

While both fighters are promoted by Don King, both will fight on a Pinnacle Boxing Promotions card.

Jones (40-3-2, 31 knockouts) will be fighting for the first time since Nov. 20, when he scored a one-sided 10-round decision over Daniel Cota in his hometown of Colon, Panama.

Jones held the WBA cruiserweight title until he was stripped in October of 2012. Jones had only defended the title twice (against Valery Brudov and Michael Marrone) in a span of four years. Jones won the WBA title in September of 2008 when he stopped Firat Arslan.

The 44-year-old Jones won the WBA title again in May of 2013 when he knocked out Denis Lebedev in the 11th round, however he was stripped of the title weeks later after testing positive for a banned substance.

Wilson (16-10-1, 9 KOs) lost a 10-round unanimous decision to Keith Tapia in his last bout on Dec. 8. He had won his previous three fights.

Saturday will mark Imam’s first fight since his shocking eighth-round knockout loss to Adrian Granados on Nov. 28 in Montreal, Canada.

Imam (18-1, 15 KOs), who had fought his previous four bouts on Showtime networks, was the WBC mandatory challenger at 140 pounds before the loss to Granados. Imam is now ranked number five by the WBC and number nine by the WBA.

Acuna (16-19, 12 KOs) has lost six of his last seven fights.

Also fighting on the card is heavyweight Trevor Bryan (16-0, 11 KOs), who will be fighting Galen Brown (44-33-1, 25 KOs) in a six round bout.
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