TV Picks of the Week: Claressa Shields vs. Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse

Pick It: Claressa Shields vs. Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse

When to Watch: Saturday, July 27 at 9 p.m. Eastern Time (2 a.m. BST) 

How to watch: DAZN

Why to Watch: Claressa Shields has won undisputed championships in two weight divisions and world titles in a third. Now she’s going for a fourth.

Shields, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, started her career by nabbing a pair of super middleweight titles in her fourth pro fight. She’d go on to become the queen of 160 and the queen of 154 before moving back up to middleweight.

For this fight, she’ll be jumping up to 175 to take on Lepage-Joanisse, who holds the WBC’s world title in this weight class, which the sanctioning body calls “heavyweight.” The vacant WBO light heavyweight belt is also on the line.

Shields, a 29-year-old from Flint, Michigan, is 14-0 (2 KOs). She returned to the 160-pound weight class in 2022 — still owner of three of the four world titles she’d last defended in 2019 — and shut out Ema Kozin. At the end of the year, she defeated Savannah Marshall to regain the fourth belt, once again becoming undisputed.

This will be Shields’ second straight main event at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit. The first came last June, when Shields shut out Maricela Cornejo. 

Shields won a mixed martial arts bout this past February and is now back fighting under the Queensberry Rules. But given the lack of depth and quality opposition at 160, Shields is taking on Lepage-Joanisse at 175.

Lepage-Joanisse, a 29-year-old from Quebec, is 7-1 (2 KOs). She first fought from 2016 to 2017, winning three fights before getting stopped in three rounds by Alejandra Jimenez. Both fighters topped 230 pounds for that bout. When Lepage-Joanisse returned to the ring in 2023, she was down at about 185 pounds. She won three fights and then moved down to the 175-pound weight class this March, winning the vacant WBC belt with a split decision over Abril Argentina Vidal.

On the undercard:

Michel Rivera vs. Hugo Alberto Roldan: Rivera will fight for the second time since his wide decision loss to Frank Martin in late 2022. Rivera moved up from lightweight to junior welterweight afterward, outpointing Sergey Lipinets last November. The 26-year-old is originally from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic but now fights out of Miami. He is 25-1 (14 KOs).

He’ll face Roldan, a 31-year-old from La Banda, Argentina. Roldan is 22-2-1 (7 KOs), and both of those losses have come in his last three fights. He dropped a razor-thin decision to Joseph Adorno in 2022 and a split decision to Batyrzhan Jukembayev in 2023.

“We’ve fought twice in the United States and lost close decisions because of local favoritism,” Roldan was quoted as saying in a press release. “This time we are not leaving it in the hands of the judges.”

Shohjahon Ergashev vs. Julian Smith: Ergashev, like Rivera, is fighting for the second time since taking his first pro loss. For Ergashev, that came last November, when he was stopped in the sixth by Subriel Matias in a junior welterweight title fight. Ergashev returned this March, knocking out his opponent in just two minutes, moving to 24-1 (21 KOs). Given how short that fight was, it is wise for the 32-year-old from Uzbekistan, and now fighting out of Detroit, to remain active.

Smith hasn’t been knocked out before, though he also doesn’t have significant pro experience. The 33-year-old, who is from outside of Chicago, is 8-2 (5 KOs). Those losses came against a pair of Cuban prospects: Raynel Mederos and Kevin Hayler Brown. In Smith’s last appearance, he at last got a win over an unbeaten Cuban up-and-comer, stopping Orestes Velazquez in February.

More Fights to Watch

Friday, July 25: Justis Huni vs. Troy Pilcher (DAZN)

The broadcast begins at 4 a.m. Eastern Time. (9 a.m. BST).

Huni remains an unbeaten heavyweight at 9-0 (4 KOs), though he very nearly lost that zero earlier this year.

In March, Huni took a close decision over Kevin Lerena and had to make it through frightening final moments in that fight. He survived and won, and now the 25-year-old from Brisbane will perform in front of his home crowd at Fortitude Music Hall.

Huni takes on Pilcher, who is also from Australia and is 9-0-1 (7 KOs). In March, Pilcher won a six-round decision over a 17-13 fighter named Renold Quinlan.

Friday, July 26: Jan Paul Rivera-Pizarro vs. Justin Goodson (DAZN)

The broadcast begins at 7 p.m. Eastern Time.

This fight between two unbeaten featherweights headlines at the Caribe Royale Orlando.

Rivera-Pizarro is a 23-year-old from Salinas, Puerto Rico. He is 9-0 (5 KOs) and coming off a six-round shutout of fellow prospect David Perez in April.

Goodson is a 28-year-old from Duluth, Georgia. He is 8-0 (8 KOs) and last fought nearly a year ago, knocking out a 30-13-1 foe named Rodolfo Hernandez Montoya.

Friday, July 26: Otto Wallin vs. Onoriode Ehwarieme (BoxingInsider.com)

The broadcast begins at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

After three fights in 2023, Wallin will step into the ring for the first time this year in this main event at Tropicana Atlantic City.

Last year saw the 33-year-old Swedish heavyweight take a split decision over Murat Gassiev and then suffer a fifth-round stoppage against Anthony Joshua. (A win over a designated opponent kicked off 2023 for Wallin.) He’s now 26-2 (14 KOs). His only other defeat came via decision against Tyson Fury in 2019; this was the fight in which Fury suffered a massive cut over his right eye.

Ehwarieme, a 36-year-old from Nigeria, is 20-4 (19 KOs). All four of Ehwarieme’s defeats have been via knockout. A few of those losses came against unbeaten foes: Zhan Kossobutskiy, 2020 Olympic gold medalist Bakhodir Jalolov, and Deontae Pettigrew. 

Bruce Seldon Jr., son of the former heavyweight titleholder, will appear on the undercard. A heavyweight himself, Seldon Jr. turned pro in June and is 1-0 (1 KO). 

Friday, July 26: Omar Trinidad vs. Viktor Slavinskyi (UFC Fight Pass)

The broadcast begins at 10 p.m. Eastern Time.

Trinidad is an unbeaten featherweight from Los Angeles. The 28-year-old is 15-0-1 (12 KOs) and last fought in January, stopping the 11-2-2 Jose Perez in the eighth round.

Slavinskyi is a 33-year-old originally from Ukraine and now living in Los Angeles. He is 15-2-1 (7 KOs), dropping two in a row back in 2022 to Claudio Marrero (via majority decision) and Edward Vazquez (via split decision). 

If those names are familiar, it’s because Marrero was once a fringe featherweight contender while Vazquez lost a majority decision in a junior lightweight title fight with Joe Cordina in November.

The undercard at the Commerce Casino & Hotel in Commerce, California, includes a fight between unbeaten welterweights Gor Yeritsyan, who is 18-0 (14 KOs) and trained by Freddie Roach, and Aram Amirkhanyan, 15-0-1 (4 KOs). 

Saturday, July 27: Joe Joyce vs. Derek Chisora (ESPN+)

The broadcast begins at 2 p.m. Eastern Time (7 p.m. BST).

Joe Joyce doesn’t want to be done as a heavyweight contender. He’ll be facing someone who was relegated to that bin a long time ago.

Joyce, who won silver at super heavyweight in the 2016 Olympics, had been on a good run in the pros. He’d absorbed punishment before stopping Daniel Dubois, fracturing his opponent’s eye socket in their 2020 bout. And he’d wrapped up 2022 with a big knockout of former heavyweight titleholder Joseph Parker.

You could say that 2023 was forgettable for Joyce. If only he could actually forget what happened.

What happened? Zhilei Zhang. Twice, Joyce stepped in with the big-punching big man, who himself had won super heavyweight silver in the 2008 Olympics. And twice, Joyce’s previous aura of invincibility was punctured, first by a sixth-round stoppage, and next by a third-round knockout.

Joyce returned in March with a final-seconds knockout of Kash Ali. That moved the 38-year-old Londoner to 16-2 (15 KOs).

He’ll face a fellow Londoner in this main event at the O2 Arena. Chisora is 40 years old and, on paper at least, is even more battle-worn than Joyce. He is 34-13 (23 KOs). In recent years Chisora has lost decisions to Oleksandr Usyk and Joseph Parker (twice, once by split decision and the other unanimously), beat Kubrat Pulev by split decision, been knocked out by Tyson Fury in the unnecessary third fight of their trilogy, and outpointed Gerald Washington.

Does Chisora have one more good performance in him? Has Joyce recovered from his losses or will the man who likened himself to Marvel Comics’ “Juggernaut” be in a new reality where he must reckon with his own vulnerability? Will this be a fun fight between two aged warriors or a sad spectacle involving two faded fighters?

The undercard includes a rematch between junior featherweight Dennis McCann, 15-0-1 (8 KOs), and Ionut Baluta, 16-4-1 (3 KOs). Their first fight ended in a cut-shortened technical draw in August 2023. Also on the broadcast is a bout between unbeaten junior lightweights Ryan Garner, 15-0 (8 KOs), and Archie Sharp, 25-0 (9 KOs).

Saturday, July 27: Stephanie Han vs. Miranda Reyes (BXNG TV)

The broadcast begins at 9 p.m. Eastern Time.

Han is a former featherweight titleholder who twice fell short when stepping up — both in weight class and the caliber of opposition. She was knocked down and shut out by lightweight champion Katie Taylor in 2021 and widely outpointed by Mikaela Mayer in 2022. This will be Han’s first appearance in the nearly 28 months since then. Han is now 41 years old. The fighter from El Paso, Texas, is 18-5-1 (1 KO).

El Paso is where this lightweight main event will be. Han will headline against Reyes, who was born in El Paso and now calls Houston home. The 23-year-old is 7-2-1 (3 KOs) and just lost a shutout to Caroline Dubois in February.

Saturday, July 27: Andrii Novytskyi vs. Keith Rydell Mayes Jr. (Combat Sports Now)

The broadcast begins at 7 p.m. Eastern Time.

Novytskyi is an unbeaten heavyweight originally from Odessa, Ukraine, and now fighting out of Los Angeles. He is 11-0 (9 KOs).

His opponent is Mayes, a 35-year-old from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, who is 15-2 (14 KOs). Only one of his victories came against an opponent with a winning record. Mayes’ two losses, both by knockout, came against foes with records of 2-2 and 7-20-1.

Follow David Greisman on Twitter @FightingWords2. His book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” is available on Amazon.