The pay-per-view undercard for the Devin Haney vs Ryan Garcia show on April 20 has been officially announced.
There will be four fights on the PPV undercard in total.
Here’s the quick rundown, and as you might expect for an official undercard announcement on April 3 for a show in 17 days, it’s nothing that’s going to knock anyone’s socks off.
- Arnold Barboza Jr vs Sean McComb in a 10-round super lightweight bout. Barboza had been previously announced for the show, and it has also been speculated that he’s waiting in the wings if either Haney or Garcia pull out of the main event for whatever reason.
- Bektemir Melikuziev will take on Pierre Dibombe in a 10-round super middleweight fight.
- John “Scrappy” Ramirez will face David Jimenez in a 12-rounder for the WBA interim flyweight title.
- Charles Conwell will make his debut with Golden Boy in a 10-round fight against Nathaniel Gallimore.
Barboza (29-0, 11 KO) made his own debut with Golden Boy in January after coming over from Top Rank, stopping Xolisani Ndongeni after eight rounds. The 32-year-old is a solid contender who has just not gotten a crack at top level, and frankly that’s not going to change against McComb (18-1, 5 KO), a 31-year-old southpaw from Belfast who’s on a seven-fight win streak after losing to Gavin Gwynne in 2021. Grade: C. It’s a bang-average fight for where Barboza is, but again, there is thought to be a major alternate reason he’s on this show. You don’t want to overpay for an opponent if you might be sliding Barboza into the main event.
Melikuziev (13-1, 10 KO) has won six straight since getting one-shotted by Gabe Rosado in 2021, including a cautious 10-round decision rematch win over Rosado about a year ago. Dibombe (22-0-1, 12 KO) is a 32-year-old from France who doesn’t break BoxRec’s super middleweight top 100 at the moment. Most of his career has been fought in his home country, though his last two — one in 2022 and one in 2023 — have been in Canada and the United States, though not against formidable foes. Grade: D+. Being honest, it’s sort of a guessing game for whether or not Dibombe has any hope of being competitive here, but if you’ve seen enough matchups like this in boxing, your gut feeling is going to lead you to the pessimist take.
Ramirez (13-0, 9 KO) is a guy Golden Boy really want to get behind, sort of a mini-Blair Cobbs but not as old. The 27-year-old has had struggles in fights and sometimes been brutally unappealing to watch, but other nights he shows you that he can live up to his “Scrappy” nickname, too. Last time out, he scored a nice stoppage over Ronal Batista. Jimenez, 31, has operated at higher level, with a close win over Ricardo Sandoval in 2022 and a close loss to WBA titlist Artem Dalakian in 2023. He’s taken three fights since that, all at lower level but staying active, including two already this year. Grade: B+. Two guys quite arguably in the legit top 10 at flyweight, well-matched on paper as Ramirez tries to prove he really belongs in the upper ranks, and Jimenez tries to get another title crack. Can’t hate on this one, this is the sort of thing you want on a PPV undercard.
Conwell (18-0, 13 KO) has seen his career sitting stagnant for years now. He really seemed to be closing in on being a legit contender after solid wins against Madiyar Ashkeyev and Wendy Toussaint late in 2020, and then he had another good one over Juan Carlos Rubio in 2021. But he hasn’t fought since late 2022 and he looked iffy in that one, though he did win. The 35-year-old Gallimore (22-7-1, 17 KO) has some power and can be dangerous, but generally speaking he loses to guys who have real talent. Conwell does have talent. Grade: C. We’ll go slightly positive for this one because it’s good to see Conwell get active, it’s good to see him with a real promoter, and to get a promising, still-young fighter active again, Golden Boy could have done worse than a tough veteran. If Conwell is what we’ve thought he can be, he should cruise here.