It’s not quite worthy of the famous London buses analogy, but after a patient summer waiting for big fights to land, September has rolled around with an exciting slate of action.
And much like a London bus, there’s an eclectic mix of characters on display over the next month, ranging from the most wholesome of Katie Taylor goodbyes, to the controversy and bad blood seeping out of every pore between Conor Benn and Ryan Garcia.
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Chuck into the mix Andy Ruiz Jr., Jai Opetaia and an unmissable all-Japanese rematch, and you have no excuse not to be locked into the sweet science in September.
Let’s run down the top five fights coming up this month.
5. Jai Opetaia vs. Noel Mikaelian, 12 rounds, cruiserweight, Sept. 12
Let’s put Zuffa Boxing/Don King/WBC politics to one side for a moment.
Jai Opetaia (30-0, 23 KOs) is longing for big fights in the cruiserweight division, and aside from a super-fight with David Benavidez, a meeting with Noel Mikealian (28-3, 12 KOs) is at the better end of the 200-pound landscape.
An Armenian-born German, Mikealian is nicknamed the “Dark Horse,” and that’s exactly what he has become at cruiserweight since grabbing the WBC title against Badou Jack last December.
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Whether he’ll be able to defend that title on the Garcia-Benn undercard is still yet to be seen — sorry, we were leaving politics to one side — but he’ll fancy his chances against a fighter in Opetaia who still hasn’t been able to show his full potential in the sport.
Jai Opetaia is the Zuffa Boxing cruiserweight champion.
(Chris Unger via Getty Images)
4. Andy Ruiz Jr. vs. Damian Knyba, 12 rounds, heavyweight, Sept. 4
Andy Ruiz Jr. is back under the Matchroom banner, seven years after dethroning Anthony Joshua inside Madison Square Garden in one of the biggest heavyweight upsets of this generation.
But time is a great healer, and Eddie Hearn has clearly forgiven “The Destroyer,” now adding him to his stable of heavyweights who are looking to challenge Frank Warren’s monopolization of the market.
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Ruiz (35-2-1, 22 KOs) has only fought four times since that historic night in 2019, losing the rematch to Joshua, beating Chris Arreola and Luis Ortiz, then drawing against Jarrell Miller in 2024.
With that in mind, it’s tough to know what to expect from him against Damian Knyba (17-1, 11 KOs).
The 30-year-old Polish fighter is no pushover and will be acutely aware of the damage that time out of the ring can do to fighters like Ruiz.
An upset wouldn’t be the biggest of shocks here, making Friday night’s New Jersey rumble one to watch in September.
[Follow Uncrowned’s live coverage of Andy Ruiz Jr. vs. Damian Knyba here.]
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3. Takuma Inoue vs. Tenshin Nasukawa, 12 rounds, for WBC bantamweight title, Sept. 27
WBC bantamweight champion Takuma Inoue and superstar Tenshin Nasukawa are running it back in September, just 10 months after Inoue won a unanimous decision for the vacant title.
Since then, Inoue (22-2, 5 KOs) and Nasukawa (8-1, 3 KOs) have recorded wins over veterans Kazuto Ioka and Juan Francisco Estrada, respectively — the latter, an impressive win by Nasukawa which helped accelerate this rematch forward.
Whether it’s too soon for these to duke it out again will be seen inside Tokyo’s Toyota Arena in late September, but it’s well worth a watch regardless.
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Nasukawa is a bonafide superstar in Japan, with his 53-fight, multi-sport win streak (pre-Inoue) making him a commercial monster. Inoue brings the family name and a good record at bantamweight to the table, and at just 30, may still have gears to find as a pro.
2. Katie Taylor vs. Flora Pili, 10 rounds, for women’s undisputed super lightweight titles, Sept. 5
This “Irish exit” will be a little more emotional than usual.
It’s quite easy to shake it off when your mate leaves a party without saying goodbye — it will be a lot harder to process the emotions of Katie Taylor saying goodbye to the sport in front of a sold-out crowd inside the historic Croke Park in Dublin.
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Words simply can’t convey how important Taylor, 40, is to boxing and to the Irish public — but I am paid to try …
Katie Taylor (left) is a genuine icon in her native Ireland.
(Stephen McCarthy via Getty Images)
Taylor (25-1, 6 KOs) is regarded as the outstanding Irish athlete of her time. Boxing is a genuine cultural touchstone in Ireland, and she has become a unifying national figure across generations. Her gold medal at the London 2012 Olympic Games catapulted her into the professional game, where she changed what was commercially and culturally possible for women’s boxing globally.
Every man, woman, child and dog in the “Emerald Isle” will be tuning into her farewell fight against France’s Flora Pili (12-0, 2 KOs), headlining a boxing event inside the country’s national stadium for the first time since Muhammad Ali vs. Al Lewis in 1972.
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Perhaps the fight — for the undisputed super lightweight world titles — will be a dud. Maybe it won’t. But in truth, this is way more about the occasion than the result after 10 scheduled rounds. Still, Taylor has the chance to cap off a remarkable career as the undisputed queen at 140 pounds.
At last, Taylor gets her fairytale ending — for a fighter who leaves her sport changed almost beyond recognition, and for the better.
Sláinte, Katie.
1. Ryan Garcia vs. Conor Benn, 12 rounds, for WBC welterweight title, Sept. 12
We go from sunshine and rainbows to thunderstorms and lightning just a week after.
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Ryan Garcia vs. Conor Benn has been manufactured in the Zuffa Boxing laboratories, pitting two controversial characters with checkered pasts together for the WBC welterweight title.
Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena hosts these two combustible characters as part of a co-promotion between Zuffa, Golden Boy Promotions and Ring Magazine, opening the door for Benn (25-1, 14 KOs) to challenge for a recognized world title for the first time in his career.
Benn, 29, hasn’t made the 147-pound limit since a 2022 second-round stoppage of Chris van Heerden, the fight before the Briton tested positive for the banned substance clomifene. A jump up to 159 pounds last November in a successful rematch against Chris Eubank Jr. has added further question marks to his abilities as a welterweight fighter.
Garcia (25-2, 20 KOs) has also had his brushes with the boxing law. A one-year suspension followed his positive test for the banned substance ostarine, with his win over Devin Haney ruled as a no-contest. He has since gone 1-1 against Rolly Romero and Mario Barrios, the latter dropping the WBC welterweight title into the lap of “King Ry.”
In many ways, these two are made for each other. And with a fascinating blend of fighting styles and aggression, they might well prove to be made for each other in combat, too.
Read the full article here
