Two days before his stablemate, unified middleweight world champion Gennady Golovkin, faces Canelo Alvarez in their massively hyped rematch, junior welterweight Ruslan Madiev will kick off the biggest boxing week of the year when he faces Pablo Cesar Cano on Sept. 13 at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
Madiev and Cano will meet in a 10-round bout that will headline the Golden Boy Boxing on ESPN card (ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes, 8 p.m. ET), Golden Boy Promotions announced on Monday.
Like Golovkin-Alvarez II, the fight pits a fighter from Kazakhstan (Madiev) against one from Mexico (Cano).
The 25-year-old Madiev (12-0, 5 KOs) shares trainer Abel Sanchez and promoter Tom Loeffler with Golovkin and is in camp with him in Big Bear Lake, California, as they prepare for their fights.
“I’m very excited to fight in Las Vegas on such a massive weekend for boxing and look forward to testing myself about Pablo Cesar Cano,” Madiev said. “I’ve been training hard in Big Bear and will be prepared for victory on Sept. 13.”
Cano (30-7-1, 21 KOs), 28, is a hard-charging brawler who has been in many action-packed fights. But he has lost two fights in a row and three of his last four, though he has faced vastly better competition than Madiev, including Shane Mosley, Erik Morales and Paulie Malignaggi.
“I am very happy to be back in an important main event on ESPN,” Cano said. “I’m going into this fight with hunger for the victory and a desire to vindicate myself against a good fighter like Ruslan Madiev. I have no doubts that our styles will mesh well to give a great fight.”
In the 10-round co-feature, Maricela Cornejo (12-2, 5 KOs), 31, of Los Angeles, will face Franchon Crews-Dezurn (3-1, 1 KO), 31, of Baltimore, for a vacant women’s interim super middleweight world title.
In another bout on the card, welterweight prospect Raul Curiel (4-0, 3 KOs), 22, a 2016 Mexican Olympian, will face Ryan Pino (8-2, 4 KOs), a Puerto Rican fighting out of Bronx, New York, in a six-round bout.
Golden Boy also announced that fans who purchase tickets for the Madiev-Cano card, which range from $10 to $75, will receive VIP seating for the Golovkin-Alvarez II weigh-in at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Sept 14.