2 Title Bouts Saturday on Showtime, Title Unification To Come?

2 Title Bouts Saturday – The Premier Boxing Champions has quite a weekend lined up with Friday’s Trump Taj Mahal event airing on Spike TV followed by a pair of events on Saturday that are being broadcast by FOX and Showtime.

The Saturday, April 30th show at the D.C. Armory features a pair of world title fights in the 168 pound super middleweight division. In the press conference to announce the event the PBC stated that the winners would be matched up later this year in a “unification” bout. The Showtime broadcast starts at 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Check out The Boxing Channel’s video from the press conference right here.

Britain’s IBF World titlist James DeGale (22-1) faces Rogelio Medina (36-6) in the first of the two 168 pound headline bouts. DeGale won the IBF title last May when he outboxed veteran Andre Dirrell to take the belt on hostile territory in Massachusetts. He followed up that win with a good showing in Canada against Lucien Bute in November and this fight with Medina will be his second title defense. In Medina, he gets a 27-year-old Mexican with loads of experience. Medina is coming off a 3-0 campaign in 2015, and he has 30 knockout wins. DeGale, a former Olympic gold medalist for England, is entering the fight a heavy favorite.

The main event sees WBC champion Badou Jack (20-1-1) making the second defense of his title as he faces former long-time champion Lucien Bute. Bute is 32-3 overall and at 36 years old he is coming off a solid showing in a losing effort to DeGale. Jack is favored in the fight, but Bute is definitely a live underdog.

The savory outcome here for Showtime would be for DeGale and Jack to win their fights and advance to meet later this year. As good a fight as it was, DeGale vs Bute 2 does not have the appeal of Jack vs DeGale and no one really is clamoring to see Jack vs Medina 2 either.

The live event at the Armory is promoted by Leonard Ellerbe and Mayweather Promotions and the show features nine fights in all. The undercard counts on a wide range of talent from the Mayweather stable, with particular notice going to 2-0 female middleweight Latondria Jones, one of of the few women on “The Money Team”. Jones faces debutante Kamika Slade in a 4×2 round match.

Check out The Boxing Channel video “Jack and Bute Duel To A Draw – Complete D.C. Armory Results”.