On Friday night, June 26, at Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel in Niagara Falls, New York, 30-year-old Dennis “Hurricane” Hogan (21-0-1, 7 KOs), from Newstead, Queensland, Australia, by way of Kildare, Ireland, defends his WBA-NABA USA title against Kenny Abril (14-7-1, 7 KOs), from Rochester, New York, in a 10-round super welterweight attraction.
Hogan, the former Australian middleweight and former WBA Oceania super welterweight champion, won the WBA-NABA USA super welterweight title in his last fight, a decision against tough Tyrone Brunson (22-4-1, 21 KOs coming in) at the Grand Casino in Hinckley, Minnesota.
Hogan’s opponent Friday night is also 30 years old, as well as a southpaw, so Abril may pose problems that Hogan will be forced to solve before a hostile hometown crowd.
In the co-main event, lightweight Tony “The Lightning” Luis (19-3, 7 KOs) from Cornwall, Ontario, Canada, who is ranked #14 by the WBA, fights Edward Valdez (13-10-2, 10 KOs), from the Big Apple by way of Moca, Dominican Republic.
Both fights, headlining an eight-bout card, are promoted by Greg Cohen Promotions, and will be televised on CBS Sports.
Of special interest, this will be the first televised fight card that will use the Pod Index, a metric for evaluating a judge’s performance, in real-time on TV. Three anonymous professional judges will be scoring these bouts at the same time as the three judges sitting ringside, and their results will be shown on TV.
I asked Matt Podgorski, creator of the Pod Index and himself a former boxing judge, what this means in terms of the Pod Index’s progress, no less than what it means in terms of boxing judging.
“First of all, hats off to Greg Cohen,” said Podgorski, “as well as CBS for being daring enough, for having vision enough to introduce the Pod Index to a wide audience. These three off-site judges will provide a good indication as to how the fight is being perceived by autonomous, trained eyes. We look forward to scoring the regional WBA title bout between Hogan and Abril in real-time.”
This article was penned by the author who is not related to the WBA and the statements, expressions or opinions referenced herein are that of the author alone and not the WBA.
