Frank Warren’s put together a decent little show for July 16th at London’s Copper Box Arena. Hamzah Sheeraz faces Francisco Emanuel Torres in the main event, while Lennox Clarke defends his Commonwealth and British super middleweight titles against Mark Heffron in the co-feature.
Sheeraz (15-0, 11 KO) will be making his second appearance at middleweight, having ended his 154-pound run with a hugely controversial TKO finish of Bradley Skeete. His inaugural appearance at 160 came against Jez Smith, whom he torched in a total of 3:38 last March.
Warren describes Argentina’s Torres (17-3-1, 5 KO) as Sheeraz’s “toughest fight yet,” which seems like a bit of a stretch considering Torres regularly makes 154 without issue, but he’s on a solid 10-fight unbeaten streak that most recently saw him fight Jose Benavidez Jr. to a draw.
Clarke (20-1-1, 8 KO), last seen rebounding from his first-ever defeat with a knockout of Willy Hutchinson, ends a nearly 16-month layoff against Heffron (27-2-1, 21 KO), who’s 2-0 over marginal competition since getting his face rearranged by Denzel Bentley in their November 2020 rematch. This’ll be “Kid Dynamite’s” first meaningful fight at 168 after doing most of his career work as a middleweight.
The card will also see Nick Ball (15-0, 8 KO) challenge Nathaniel Collins (11-0, 5 KO) for the British and Commonwealth featherweight titles and Dennis McCann (12-0, 6 KO) meet James Beech Jr. (14-2, 2 KO) for a WBC trinket. Ryan Garner (11-0, 6 KO), Pierce O’Leary (9-0, 5 KO), Karol Itauma (7-0, 5 KO) and Masood Abdullah (4-0, 4 KO) will be in action as well, as will the delightfully named Sonny Liston Ali (3-0, 0 KO) among others.