The "Night of Champions" card, which will take place on August 27 at the Coliseum of the Sports City of Havana, promises to be an unforgettable event with the participation of Cuban Olympic double champions Julio César La Cruz and Arlen López, whose fights will award the winners a respectable sum of $120,000 each.
In the program organized by the International Boxing Association (IBA), La Cruz will face the Uzbek Madiyar Saydrakhimov in the 92-kilogram category, and López will compete against the Belarusian Aliaksei Alfiorau (80). Both matches will be the only ones to consist of 10 rounds and have the mentioned purses as the highest.
The local fighters have just fallen short in Paris 2024, as “La Sombra,” champion in Rio de Janeiro 2016 and Tokyo 2020, lost in his debut, while López, a champion in those same editions, fell in the semifinals, so he had to settle for the bronze medal.
The event, which celebrates World Boxing Day, will also have the appeal of seeing Erislandy Álvarez (63.5) in action, the king in the Olympic edition on French soil. The boxer from Cienfuegos will face Uruguayan Eduardo Estela, who arrives with a positive record of 16 wins and three losses as a professional, according to JIT.
The lineup is rounded out by two-time Olympic champion Roniel Iglesias (67) against the Armenian Gurgen Madoyan, while the ring will also feature Lázaro Álvarez (63.5) and Saidel Horta (57) facing the Uzbek Mujibillo Tursonov and the Russian Ruslan Belousov, respectively.
It is worth noting that the event will mark the return of professional boxing to the largest of the Antilles after decades of absence, although some believe that this occurred with the (defunct) World Series of Boxing.
Billboard:
57 kg: Saidel Horta vs. Ruslan Belousov (RUS)
63.5 kg: Lázaro Álvarez (CUB) vs. Mujibillo Tursonov (UZB)
63.5 kg: Erislandy Álvarez (CUB) vs. Eduardo Estela (URU)
67 kg: Roniel Iglesias (CUB) vs. Gurgen Madoyan (ARM)
80 kg: Arlen López (CUB) vs. Aliaksei Alfiorau (BLR)
92 kg: Julio César La Cruz (CUB) vs. Madiyar Saydrakhimov (UZB)
What do you think?
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