Pick it: Angelo Leo vs. Tomoki Kameda
When to Watch: Saturday, May 24. The main event is expected to begin around 4 a.m. Eastern Time (9 a.m. BST).
How to watch: The channel or website has not yet been announced.
Why to Watch: Two title matches top this show at Intex Osaka in Osaka, Japan, including the return of Angelo Leo as he fights for the first time since winning the IBF belt at 126lbs.
Leo, 25-1 (12 KOs), took that title by force with a highlight-reel knockout of Luis Alberto Lopez last August, dropping him for the count in the 10th round. The victory made Leo a two-division titleholder. He previously won a vacant world title at junior featherweight in 2020, outpointing Tramaine Williams. Leo’s reign was brief, however; he lost the belt to Stephen Fulton less than six months later. Leo had one more fight at 122 and then moved up to 126, notching a few more wins before taking on Lopez.
The win over Lopez took place in Leo’s hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico. For this defense, the 31-year-old will be heading into Kameda’s hometown. And Leo would of course like this second reign to last longer than his first.
Kameda, 42-4 (23 KOs), is a member of the fighting Kameda family alongside fellow former titleholders Koki and Daiki.
Tomoki is about a decade removed from his last title reign. He defeated Paulus Ambunda for the WBO bantamweight belt in 2013 and made three successful defenses before vacating the belt in April 2015 so that he could instead challenge the WBA’s secondary titleholder, Jamie McDonnell. Kameda lost the narrowest of unanimous decisions to McDonnell, just one point down on all three scorecards. Their rematch ended with a much wider victory for McDonnell.
Kameda has gone 11-2 since then and is now 33 years old. He fell short against Rey Vargas in a junior featherweight title bout in 2019 and lost a split decision to the 19-2 Lerato Dlamini in October 2023. Kameda and Dlamini had a rematch one year later; this time it was Kameda winning via split decision in October 2024 in what was Kameda’s last appearance in the ring.
In the co-feature, Pedro Taduran, 17-4-1 (13 KOs), will defend his IBF strawweight belt in a rematch against the man he won it from, Ginjiro Shigeoka, whom Taduran stopped in nine rounds last July.
This is Taduran’s second title reign. After losing a decision in a title bout with Wanheng Menayothin in August 2018, Taduran won the vacant IBF belt about a year later with a four-round stoppage of Samuel Salva. Taduran’s first defense ended in a technical draw and his second defense saw him lose to Rene Mark Cuarto in February 2021. A cut-shortened rematch went Cuarto’s way as well in February 2022.
That is where Shigeoka, 11-1 (9 KOs), comes in. Cuarto lost the IBF title to Daniel Valladares in July 2022. Shigeoka challenged Valladares in January 2023, but the fight ended as a “no contest” due to an injury caused by an accidental headbutt. Shigeoka knocked out Cuarto three months later for the interim IBF belt and then stopped Valladares that October for the full title. He made one successful defense before losing to Taduran.
(Ginjiro’s brother, Yudai Shigeoka, held the WBC title at 105lbs from October 2023 until March 2024.)
More Fights to Watch
Thursday, May 22: Jonny Mansour vs. Christian Avalos (DAZN)
The broadcast begins at 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time (3:30 a.m. BST).
Mansour, 4-0 (2 KOs), is a 24-year-old lightweight from La Mesa, California. He will headline at the Avalon Hollywood against Avalos, 3-2-2 (0 KOs).
The undercard includes a featherweight bout between Vic Pasillas, 17-1 (10 KOs), and Carlos Jackson, 20-2 (13 KOs).
Friday, May 23: Terri Harper vs. Natalie Zimmermann (DAZN)
The broadcast begins at 1 p.m. Eastern Time (6 p.m. BST).
Harper, 15-2-2 (6 KOs), will be making the first defense of her WBO lightweight title, which she seized in September with a unanimous decision over Rhiannon Dixon. The 28-year-old Harper hails from Doncaster, England, and will be performing in front of her hometown crowd at Eco-Power Stadium.
Harper has also held world titles in two other weight classes. She won the WBC junior lightweight belt in February 2020 with a wide decision over Eva Wahlstrom, defended it with a draw against Natasha Jonas, fought through a broken hand for several rounds before stopping the 13-0 Katharina Thanderz, and then was dispatched herself in four rounds by Alycia Baumgardner in November 2021.
By September 2022, Harper was up at junior middleweight, where she outpointed Hannah Rankin for the WBA belt. Harper then won a decision over Ivana Habazin and fought to a draw with Cecilia Braekhus in a 2023 bout that also had the vacant WBO title on the line. Next, Harper moved downward on the scales and lost to then-welterweight titleholder Sandy Ryan in March 2024 before dropping even further to 135lbs.
Zimmermann, 13-0 (3 KOs), is a 42-year-old from Hamburg, Germany. On paper at least, this should be a huge step up in level of competition for Zimmermann, who has never faced an opponent with more wins than losses.
The undercard includes a lightweight bout between Maxi Hughes, 28-7-2 (6 KOs), and Archie Sharp, 25-1 (9 KOs).
Hughes has won two straight since suffering back-to-back defeats, one of them controversial (a majority decision loss to George Kambosos Jnr in 2023) and one of them clear (stopped after four rounds with William Zepeda in March 2024).
Sharp is coming off a decision loss to the 15-0 Ryan Garner last July.
Friday, May 23: Alexas Kubicki vs. Alondra Yamile Hernandez Mendoza (BXNG TV)
The broadcast begins at 9 p.m. Eastern Time (2 a.m. BST).
Kubicki, 12-1 (2 KOs), is a 21-year-old flyweight from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She will be headlining at her hometown’s River Cree Resort and Casino. Her lone loss came in May 2023, when she lost a decision to the 2-3-2 Linda Contreras Ibarra. Kubicki has won six in a row since.
Hernandez Mendoza, 8-0 (0 KOs), is a 19-year-old from Mexico.
Friday, May 23: Andrii Novytskyi vs. David Zegarra (Combat Sports Now)
The broadcast begins at 7 p.m. Eastern Time (midnight BST).
Novytskyi, 14-0 (10 KOs), is a 29-year-old heavyweight originally from Odessa, Ukraine, and now fighting out of Los Angeles.
His opponent at Melrose Memorial Hall in Melrose, Massachusetts, is Zegarra, 35-12-1 (22 KOs), a 40-year-old from Peru who has gone 2-9-1 since 2019. Zegarra has never fought at heavyweight, per BoxRec: In this recent stretch he has gone up and down between super middleweight, light heavyweight and cruiserweight.
Saturday, May 24: Josh Taylor vs. Ekow Essuman (DAZN)
The main broadcast begins at 2 p.m. Eastern Time (7 p.m. BST). A preliminary undercard will stream at 11:05 a.m. ET (4:05 p.m. BT).
New weight class. New promoter. New beginning?
The first two are certain for Josh Taylor. The third is still to be determined.
Taylor was once the undisputed junior welterweight champion, winning a pair of world titles during the World Boxing Super Series tournament – taking the zeros of Ryan Martin, Ivan Baranchyk and Regis Prograis along the way – and then grabbing the remaining two belts afterward with a victory over Jose Ramirez in May 2021. That was quite a standout run.
The rest of his reign wasn’t.
Taylor barely held on to his throne with a controversial split decision over Jack Catterall in February 2022. He was soon stripped of or otherwise vacated all but his WBO belt. And then he lost that title and the lineal championship in a decision loss to Teofimo Lopez in June 2023. Taylor returned in May 2024 and lost his rematch to Catterall via unanimous decision.
So now, at 34 years old, with a record of 19-2 (13 KOs), Taylor is making the move to welterweight that had been teased for years. But with far less momentum. He’s at least headlining a show in his home country of Scotland at the OVO Hydro in Glasgow. Will he be rejuvenated at 147lbs? Was the time away good for him or will this latest stretch of inactivity only exacerbate his issues?
This fight with Essuman allows Taylor to dip his toes into the pool rather than diving straight into the deep end.
Essuman, 21-1 (8 KOs), is a 36-year-old originally from Botswana and now fighting out of Nottingham, England. The WBO ranks him fourth while the WBA has Essuman slotted at 14th. He’s a solid domestic-level welterweight. Since 2023, Essuman has won a majority decision over the 14-1 Chris Kongo, lost a unanimous decision to the 12-2 Harry Scarff, come off the canvas to stop the 10-0 Owen Cooper and, most recently, won a majority decision over the 10-0 Ben Vaughan.
The undercard includes the return of rising heavyweight prospect Moses Itauma, 11-0 (9 KOs). The 20-year-old has been making short work of his opponents, including a two-round stoppage of faded former title challenger Mariusz Wach last July and a two-minute drubbing of the 22-1 Demsey McKean in December.
Itauma’s opponent is Mike Balogun, 21-1 (16 KOs). The 41-year-old Balogun took his only loss in March 2023, a second-round knockout defeat by former cruiserweight titleholder Murat Gassiev. Balogun returned in March 2024 with a unanimous decision over an 11-20-5 foe but has been inactive for the past 14 months.
And in a featherweight bout, Nathaniel Collins, 16-0 (7 KOs), will face Lee McGregor, 15-1-1 (11 KOs). They met previously as amateurs; .
Sunday, May 25: James Osborne vs. Liam Forrest (DAZN)
The broadcast begins at 1 p.m. Eastern Time (6 p.m. BST).
This fight was bumped into the main event at York Hall in London after the postponement of Constantin Ursu-Ryan Amos.
Osborne, 8-1 (1 KO), is a 33-year-old super middleweight from Wickford, England
Forrest, 3-0-1 (0 KOs), is a 27-year-old from Moulsecoomb, England.
David Greisman, who has covered boxing since 2004, is on Twitter. David’s book, “,” is available on Amazon.