It looks like there’ll be at least one quality heavyweight fight on July 24th, as Mike Coppinger reports that undefeated prospects Frank Sanchez and Efe Ajagba “have agreed to a deal” to meet on the Tyson Fury vs Deontay Wilder 3 pay-per-view.
Cuba’s Sanchez (18-0, 13 KO) will definitely be taking the bigger step up in competition between the two, having beaten the likes of Joey Dawejko, Brian Howard, and most recently Nagy Aguilera since 2019. He looks solid, but he’s definitely due for the sort of test Ajagba (15-0, 12 KO) figures to offer.
The Nigerian Olympian is in a bit of an awkward spot in his career. Strong wins over Amir Mansour and Ali Eren Demirezen made him a hot commodity and earned him a Top Rank contract, but he came out extremely flat for his promotional debut against Jonnie Rice, almost halving his customary punch output en route to a dull unanimous decision. There may have been some growing pains with new trainer Kay Koroma, however, as he seemingly returned to form with an incredibly violent one-punch knockout of the aforementioned Howard in April.
He’ll have two inches of height and seven inches of reach on “The CUban Flash.”
This matchup, like Joe Joyce vs. Daniel Dubois, deserves to be lauded. These are two extremely promising young men who could very easily have just stayed big fish in small ponds until a low-risk, high-reward title opportunity showed itself, but they’re putting their undefeated records on the line. I respect the hell out of that; may this be one of many in 2021.
