Junior middleweight prospects Ardreal Holmes and Ismael Villarreal will risk their perfect records against one another Saturday on “ShoBox: The New Generation”
ARDREAL HOLMES (12-0, 5 KOS)
VS. ISMAEL VILLARREAL (12-0, 8 KOS)
- Date: Friday, Feb. 17
- Time: 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT (main event later in show)
- Where: Stormont Vail Events Center, Topeka, Kansas
- TV/Stream: Showtime
- Division: Junior middleweights (154 pounds)
- At stake: No major titles
- Pound-for-pound ranking: None
- Odds: NA
- Also on the card: Misael Lopez vs. Edward Vazquez, junior lightweights
- Prediction: Holmes UD
- Background: Two American junior middleweight prospects will risk their perfect records against one another in a main event on “ShoBox: The New Generation”. Holmes, a 2016 Olympic Alternate, is coming off a unanimous decision over Vernon Brown in his first 10-rounder on ShoBox last March. The product of Flint, Michigan, is an unusually tall (6-foot-2) southpaw with a long reach and excellent skills that were honed during his successful amateur career, which is why he appears to have a high ceiling. The aggressive Villarreal last fought in July, when he stopped LeShawn Rodriguez in six rounds. It was the Bronx native’s fifth consecutive knockout. He’s much shorter than Holmes (5-foot-8) but he also had a good amateur career, meaning he has a solid skill set to go with his punching power.