DETROIT – “Big Time Boxing USA” is back in Detroit for its third event on May 23 at Wayne State Fieldhouse. The fight card features top Metro Detroit contenders and prospects in their respective divisions.
In the main event, heavyweight contender Jermaine Franklin of Saginaw returns to his home state to take on former United States Olympian Devin Vargas of Toledo.
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“Fighting in my home state again feels great,” said Franklin. “I love the energy. It’s like an aura, and it feels great.”
In his last bout, Franklin, 30, got back into the win column with a dominant 10-round unanimous decision victory over the previously unbeaten Isaac Munoz Gutierrez last July in Detroit.
Franklin was coming off close decision losses to former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua and top contender Dillian Whyte in his previous two outings.
Those tough losses versus Whyte and Joshua were held at two massive London venues, including the Wembley Arena (Whyte) and the O2 Arena (Joshua).
As a boxer with previous big-fight experience, Franklin seeks to climb the ladder back into contention for a world title.
“I still see myself as a top guy, and I’m just trying to get back to the top fights,” Franklin said. “Mentally and physically, I’m ready to take the call for the next big fight.”
A win against Vargas would come in perfect timing as the landscape of the heavyweight division recently changed with Oleksandr Usyk defeating Tyson Fury for the Undisputed World Heavyweight Championship on May 18.
Franklin believes his high punch volume style would give him an advantage in a potential bout against the newly crowned undisputed champ.
“I only saw bits and pieces of Fury versus Usyk, but I think my punch output would be a lot higher than those guys,” said Franklin. “Usyk can punch and move against the big heavyweights; he’s got real nice feet, but I think my punch output could keep up with him a lot better than most other heavyweights could.”
The co-feature is an eight-round bout where someone’s “O” has got to go. Undefeated former national amateur champion Joshua James Pagan (9-0, 4 KOs) of Grand Rapids will take the most significant step up of his young career in a dangerous test against fellow undefeated prospect Roger Hilley (13-0, 8 KOs) of Chattanooga, Tennessee for the Junior NABF Super Lightweight Championship.
This will be Pagan’s first fight in 2024. He planned to stay busy this year, but bouts versus Dwane Taylor and Luis Porozo were canceled. Nonetheless, Pagan is eager to return to the ring and put on a show in his home state.
“It feels great to be back,” said Pagan. “I was supposed to fight in February and March, and it didn’t go through, so I’m happy to be back. It was frustrating a lot to train and not fight, but I just call it God’s timing. I’m ready to go, and I can’t wait to bring the belt home.”
“The winner of that fight is going to take a major step in their careers,” said head of Salita Promotions, Dmitriy Salita. “It’s going to be on television in a big fight city with boxing media present, so it’s a significant fight and certainly something that the boxing fans will enjoy.”
In a late addition to the lineup, super middleweight Ali Akhmedov will take on always-tough Encarnacion “Demoledor” Diaz in a 10-round bout.
Akhmedov works alongside Detroit native and world-class trainer Jonathan Banks.
“I’m very happy to work with Johnathon,” said Akhmedov. “We have a very good connection. He understands me, and I believe in him. I’ve learned a lot from Johnathon. He’s taught me a lot about moving around the ring better.”
“We’ve been having fun since the first day we worked together,” said Banks. “We met when I started training Gennady Golovkin about five years ago.”
Banks’s Detroit boxing style and Akhmedov’s Kazakh boxing style complement each other well and have allowed the pair to build up great chemistry.
Banks draws influence from legendary Detroit trainer Emanuel Steward.
“The Kazakh style of boxing is similar to the Kronk style because they do a lot of movement,” said Banks. “The only difference is the late, great Emanuel Steward taught us to do rhythm along with our movement, and we punch off that rhythm and punch off that movement, and that’s what we’ve worked on a lot – moving and punching at the same time because that’s what Emanuel was all about.”
The undercard is stacked with exciting matchups featuring some of the best local prospects, including Detroit’s undefeated “Hitman 2.0″ Da’Velle Smith (8-0, 6 KOs), once-beaten Dearborn-based KO artist Husam Al Mashhadi (9-1, 8 KOs), and Mount Clemens undefeated and hard-punching Luis Quintero (7-0, 7 KOs).
This will be the third boxing event at Wayne State Fieldhouse, the home of the Detroit Pistons’ G-League affiliate, the Motor City Cruise, after Big Time Boxing USA debuted in February.
Salita seeks to continue organizing boxing events in Detroit, a city with a rich boxing history.
“We’re building a brand and building consistency here,” said Salita. “Detroit is a boxing historic hometown that has produced some of the greatest fighters in the sport of boxing and some of the champions that are synonymous with the word boxing. And it’s one of the few cities in the United States that has all the major league teams: basketball, baseball, hockey, and football. But it has been boxing that has brought world champions in the city of Detroit and the state of Michigan consistently.”
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