Tonight at 9:00 p.m. ET Premier Boxing Champions returns to Spike TV for a Friday Night Lights Out presentation featuring a heavyweight main event that pits Antonio Tarver (31-6-0, 21 KO) vs. Steve Cunningham (28-7-0, 13 KO) in a card that can be live streamed online free by clicking this link.
Tarver, a decorated light heavyweight champion, has some real disadvantages entering this fight. He's 46, he hasn't fought since December 2014, and his best wins happened a decade or more in the past.
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Tarver has won his last two fights, but they were a long time ago too, and neither came against particularly stiff competition. On the plus side, Cunningham isn't necessarily a top-flight heavyweight himself. Cunningham has fought more recently -- March 14 of this year -- but he was beaten in that fight by Vyacheslav Glazkov.
Tarver has dreams of following in the footsteps of Bernard Hopkins, a man who beat him in 2006, and winning a title at a very old age in boxing years.
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"Every fight is do-or-die for me. I've come too far to start over. I'm on a destiny trip right now. I'm racing towards that heavyweight world championship," Tarver told ESPN. He is a regular announcer for the PBC on Spike broadcasts, and after 18 months out of the ring he has to hope he resembles the Tarver of old rather than Mason "The Line" Dixon, who struggled to a victory over Rocky Balboa in the sixth installment of the Rocky franchise.
That was a forgettable fight, and this one might be even worse.
Cunningham has dreams of chasing a heavyweight title too, and talked up this fight as a career-defining challenge based on Tarver's accolades.
"This is a big challenge. Tarver has made history. That's the kind of challenge I like. Heavyweight is a bigger challenge than cruiserweight. These guys are supposed to be bigger and stronger than me. I'm very competitive, and that pushes me during training. The challenges keep me going."
Fighting Tarver 10 years ago would have meant more, but nonetheless, this has the chance to be an entertaining scrap even if it won't have much impact on the sport.
Prediction: Cunningham def. Tarver by unanimous decision.
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