EL PASO, Texas (Oct. 16, 2018) — Miguel “The Scorpion” Marriaga has had two previous cracks at world championship glory, falling short against Oscar Valdez and Vasiliy Lomachenko. The Colombian puncher’s quest for a third title shot continues Saturday, Nov. 3, when he takes on Jose Estrella (20-14-1, 14 KOs) in an eight-round featherweight bout at the Don Haskins Center in El Paso, Texas.
Marriaga-Estrella will be the co-feature to the previously announced Miguel Berchelt-Miguel Roman super featherweight title bout and will stream live at 9:30 p.m ET. on ESPN+— the new multi-sport, direct-to-consumer subscription streaming service from The Walt Disney Company’s Direct-to-Consumer & International segment in conjunction with ESPN.
The undercard will stream live on ESPN+ beginning at 6 p.m. ET and includes 2016 Brazilian Olympic gold medalist Robson Conceicao (9-0, 5 KOs), who will take on Joey Laviolette (9-1, 5 KOs) in an eight-round super featherweight fight.
“I am excited to be back on a great card, and I look forward to winning impressively and getting back to world title contention,” Marriaga said. “There are a lot of great featherweights out there, and I am here to prove that I am one of them.”
Marriaga (26-3, 22 KOs) proved he belonged at the world-class level in 2017 with a pair of valiant efforts in championship bouts. He battled WBO featherweight champion Valdez, pushing the budding superstar en route to a competitive unanimous decision defeat. He then moved up four pounds to challenge pound-for-pound elite Lomachenko for the WBO junior lightweight title, losing via seventh-round TKO. He returned to action on May 12 in Colombia, knocking out Derlinson Buriel in the fourth round.
In other undercard action:
Saul “Neno” Rodriguez (21-0-1, 15 KOs) will return from a 20-month layoff to face Claudio Tapia (28-18-4, 13 KOs) in a 10-round lightweight bout.
Sagadat Rakhmankul (3-0, 1 KO), the Egis Klimas-managed prospect who is training out of the Boxing Laboratory in Oxnard, Calif., will fight Nicklaus Flaz (5-1, 4 KOs) in an eight-rounder at welterweight.
Janibek Alimkhanuly (3-0, 1 KO), also known as “Johnny 2 Guns”, will fight the talented Vaughn Alexander (12-1, 8 KOs) in an eight-rounder at super middleweight. Alimkhanuly last fought Sept. 28 and shut out Carlos Galvan over six rounds.
El Paso-born middleweight prospect Zach Prieto (3-0, 2 KOs) will fight Michael Andrews (1-2, 0 KOs) in a four-rounder.
Philadelphia native Paul Krool (1-0, 1 KOs) will look to make it two in a row against an opponent to be determined in a four-round welterweight bout.
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ESPN+ is the premium multi-sport, direct-to-consumer subscription streaming service from The Walt Disney Company’s Direct-to-Consumer & International (DTCI) segment in conjunction with ESPN. ESPN+ offers fans two exclusives, original boxing programs The Boxing Beat with Dan Rafael (Tuesdays, weekly) and In This Corner (twice monthly). In addition to exclusive Top Rank boxing content, programming on ESPN+ includes hundreds of MLB, NHL and MLS games, thousands of college sports events (including football, basketball and multiple other sports from more than 15 conferences), UFC (beginning in 2019), Grand Slam tennis, international and domestic rugby, cricket, new and exclusive documentary films and series, acclaimed studio shows and the full library of ESPN’s award-winning 30 for 30 films. Fans subscribe to ESPN+ for just $4.99 a month (or $49.99 per year) and cancel at any time.
