Richardson Hitchins is scheduled to face fellow unbeaten 140-pound contender Gustavo Lemos on Saturday in Las Vegas.
RICHARDSON HITCHINS (17-0, 7 KOs)
VS. GUSTAVO LEMOS (29-0, 19 KOs)
- Date: Saturday, April 6
- Time: 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT (main event later in show)
- Where: Fontainebleau Las Vegas, Las Vegas
- TV/Stream: DAZN
- Division: Junior welterweight (140 pounds)
- At stake: No major titles
- Pound-for-pound: None
- Odds: Hitchins 5-1 favorite (average of multiple outlets)
- Significance (up to five stars): ***
- Also on the card: Diego Pacheco vs. Shawn McCalman, super middleweights; Skye Nicolson vs. Sarah Mahfoud, featherweights (for vacant WBC title); Galal Yafai vs. Agustin Mauro Gauto, flyweights; Marc Castro vs. Abraham Montoya, junior lightweights
- Background: Hitchins is a 2016 U.S. Olympian and a rising young 140-pound contender from New York City. The 26-year-old, an excellent technician, is coming off the biggest victory of his career: a near-shutout decision over former three-time world title challenger Jose Zepeda on Sept. 23. Hitchins is ranked in the Top 3 in three of the four major sanctioning bodies, No. 2 by the WBC. Lemos is best known for his fifth-round knockout of one-time 126-pound titleholder Lee Selby at 135 pounds in March 2022, which sent the aging Welshman into retirement. The IBF’s No. 7-ranked 140-pounder also is on a run of 10 consecutive knockouts. However, he has faced no one else of note. And the 28-year-old resident of Buenos Aires has never fought outside of his native country, which makes it difficult to gauge the threat to Hitchins he will pose on Saturday.
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