Alycia Baumgardner (14-1, 7 KOs) defends her undisputed super featherweight title against Christina Linardatou (14-2, 6 KOs) on Saturday night at the Masonic Temple in Detroit, live worldwide on DAZN. Baumgardner is looking to avenge her only pro defeat.
Alycia Baumgardner: “This is a full-circle moment for me. I am looking at her and picturing myself at our first fight, and knowing who I am now, the growth that was necessary to get to this moment, I’m a completely different fight now and she will see that on Saturday.”
Christina Linardatou: “It’s such a great opportunity for me, it’s something any boxer dreams of – the biggest thing a boxer can achieve. She’s already done it, but I have beaten her once and I will do it again.”
In other action, Andy Cruz makes his professional debut at lightweight against Juan Carlos Burgos for the IBF International title, heavyweight contender Jermaine Franklin (21-2, 14 KOs) faces Issac Munoz (17-0-1, 14 KOs) over ten rounds, and local featherweight Ja’Rico O’Quinn (15-1-1, 8 KOs) meets Carlos Mujica (8-2, 2 KOs).
A bout between Richardson Hitchins and Montana Love was postponed.
I didn’t see their first fight — only a few clips — but it will be interesting to see how this one plays out. Linardatou went on to become a world champion and gave Katie Taylor one of the best fights of her career, so if she still has anything left in the tank, this one should at least be kind of close, but we’ll see and there’s always a chance that…maybe she just has AB’s ‘number’. I doubt it though.
Christina will take all those titles come Saturday, the party is on!!
Interesting, and see Jermaine Franklin is on the card as well, fighting the unbeaten Issac Munoz, who’s record shows he weighed 163¼ in 2011, waited nearly five years and returned as a heavyweight.
This is a true fight. Can’t wait to see if anything changed or will Christina be victorious again
How absurd that there is not just one world championship belt. Really would be great to end all these sanctioning bodies and just have one world champion per division. Having said that, this should be a great fight between Baumgardner and Linardatou.