Jessie Magdaleno To Defend WBO Title On Halloween ESPN Card
ESPN and Top Rank are just rolling this week when it comes to fight card announcements.
First, Top Rank will have a card on ESPN on September 22, the fourth Top Rank card ESPN is broadcasting this year. Then on October 31, Top Rank will have another ESPN with Jessie Magdaleno defending his WBO super bantamweight title against Cesar Juarez in the main event.
The co-feature of that bout will be the Artur Beterbiev vs. Enrico Koelling fight that had been set for months, but couldn’t get the fight to happen. The fight was originally supposed to be on the Adrien Broner vs. Mikey Garcia card at the Barclays Center on July 29, but it got called off due to conflicting reasons.
Top Rank surprisingly won a purse bid July 25 to earn the right to promote the Beterbiev-Koelling fight. Bob Arum’s company bid $315,000, much more than the only other bid, which was the $80,000 offered by Sauerland Event, Koelling’s promoter. Winning the purse bid initiated conjecture regarding Beterbiev eventually signing with Top Rank. Beterbiev is engaged in litigation with promoter Yvon Michel over the validity of Beterbiev’s contract with Michel’s company.
The promotion recently will have Oscar Valdez and Gilberto Ramirez defend their titles on that September ESPN card. Magdaleno’s last fight was on the April Top Rank pay-per-view that both Valdez and Ramirez also fought at.
