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Callum Walsh earns career-biggest test on Canelo-Crawford card, live on Netflix
AN ALREADY MASSIVE night for Irish boxing has just gotten bigger with Callum Walsh now confirmed as one of the support acts to Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez's Las Vegas headliner against fellow generational great Terence Crawford on Saturday, 13 September.
Hours after the first ever all-Irish world title fight between Lewis Crocker and Paddy Donovan at Windsor Park, Belfast, Walsh [14-0, 11KOs] will take to the ring at Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas, where he will face fellow rising star Fernando Vargas Jr [17-0, 15KOs] on the biggest boxing card of the year.
Walsh's career-toughest test, and the undisputed super-middleweight title fight that follows between Canelo and Crawford, will be broadcast live on Netflix.
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In Vargas Jr, the Cork man faces another undefeated puncher who has an eye on a world-title breakthrough at light-middleweight. Nicknamed 'El Feroz', the Californian Vargas Jr is the son of Mexican-American former two-time light-middleweight world champion Fernando Vargas.
Vargas Jr's only fight this year was a fourth-round victory over the 23-7 Argentinian Gonzalo Gaston Coria in May.
Walsh has been ruled fit despite suffering a bad cut over his right eye during his last outing, which consequently led to his winning a fifth-round technical decision over the 23-6-1 Elias Espadas.
Earlier in the year, he disposed of the 19-1 Scotsman Dean Sutherland in a headline bout at Madison Square Garden's smaller Theater venue.
Both Walsh and Vargas Jr are southpaws, and the winner will move firmly into contention to challenge the champions at 154 pounds.
In September's main event at Las Vegas' 65,000-capacity NFL stadium, unbeaten American pound-for-pound star Terence 'Bud' Crawford will move up a further two weight divisions to challenge fellow modern-day great Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez for the Mexican's undisputed super-middleweight world title.
The bout between fellow four-weight world champions will be one of the most significant of the 21st century.
Should he defeat the naturally larger Canelo, Crawford will join exalted company in becoming a three-weight undisputed champion. He would become the first boxer to do so in the four-belt modern era.
