Friday Night Fights Quick Picks

Thomas Williams Jr. vs. Gabriel Campillo: As the Friday Night Fights season starts to wind down big time boxing fans wonder where they will get their Friday fix of boxing.  While there might not be much to look forward to once the season ends fans can look forward to some very good fights to close it out.  This Friday will have some talented fighters in action and the main event for this week should be a good fight between Thomas Williams Jr. (17-0, 12 KO) and veteran Gabriel Campillo (23-6-1, 10 KO) as they square off in a 12 round light heavyweight title eliminator.  Williams Jr. is a talented prospect with a nice jab he works upstairs and down from the southpaw stance.  The southpaw also has a nice short right hook in his arsenal of weapons.  What Williams Jr. needs to work on is his left hand.  While he will throw a nice straight left hand when he throws that bunch crooked it tends to come in wide and very wild.  Another question about Williams Jr. is his defense, at times he looks solid defensively but other times he just puts on the earmuffs and he has been dropped before in his career.  Early in his career Williams Jr. feasted on bad opponents but his last five bouts have come against quality opposition and he has looked pretty good.  On Friday Williams Jr. will look to remain unbeaten as he takes on a fellow southpaw in Campillo, a fighter with much more experience.  Campillo is a skilled fighter who just seems to always fall a little short against top competition but he should be the perfect test for the young Williams Jr.  Campillo has a nice jab and straight left hand along with excellent head movement.  The problem for Campillo is his chin and he has been knocked out three times in his six losses.  Those six losses have come against good fighters including Sergey Kovalev and Tavoris Cloud.  Campillo could give Williams Jr. some problems because his hand speed is pretty good and he fights well on the outside or from the pocket.  Campillo can be worn down though and Williams Jr. likes to put a lot behind his punches.  Williams Jr. is coming off to early knockout wins and may try to jump on Campillo early.  I expect Campillo to be able to withstand that early attack and outbox Williams Jr. early on.  Eventually though Williams Jr. will start to connect and wear Campillo down on his way to a 10th round stoppage.


Andre Dirrell vs. Vladine Biosse: The co-feature on Friday night will showcase a very talented fighter in Andre Dirrell (21-1, 14 KO) as he looks to get back into the title mix.  Dirrell will take on Vladine Biosse (15-4-2, 7 KO) a fighter who is 1-3-1 in his past five bouts.  Biosse has been used in recent years as a stepping stone for young prospects or an opponent for veteran fighters looking to get back on track.  One reason for this is because Biosse has a bad chin and is easy to look impressive against.  Looking impressive is something Dirrell hopes he can do.  Dirrell is a southpaw with outstanding hand speed that he flashes with his jab and straight left hand.  Because of that hand speed Dirrell often doubles and even triples up that jab.  Dirrell also likes to stick that jab to the body much like Floyd Mayweather who has mastered the punch.  On offense Dirrell is a joy to watch because of his high punch output and he is just as good on the defense side of things.  The only loss Dirrell has suffered came against Carl Froch in 2009 and it was a very close split decision loss in Froch's backyard.  The problem for Dirrell recently has been inactivity.  Since 2010 Dirrell has only fought three times, once in 2010, once in 2011, not at all in 2012, and once in 2013.  Some promotional issues were to blame for that but now all that seems to be cleared up so look for Dirrell to have a very busy 2014 & 2015.  He will start that off by trying to get past Biosse.  Like every other fighter who will be televised on this card Biosse is a southpaw.  Unfortunately for Biosse he doesn't bring much to the table.  He has a decent jab and left hand but he doesn't have very good power.  Biosse fights better from the outside but isn't very busy from that range.  He does get busier on the inside but he also takes  a ton of punches and seems to wither under power punches.  This shouldn't be much more than a look good fight for Dirrell and I think he will look very impressive on his way to a 6th round stoppage.