Thursday night thriller awaits in Vegas

A huge weekend of Boxing lies ahead for fight fans in Las Vegas, with promoter Bob Arum putting on shows on Thursday, Friday and of course Saturday. Friday sees welterweight contender Jessie Vargas return to the ring, and then on Saturday the action heads to the MGM Grand for that massive 4th fight between Pacquiao and Marquez. The action starts on Thursday however at the Mirage Hotel & Casino, with a fantastic looking lightweight headliner between Raymundo Beltran and Ji-Hoon Kim.

Beltran in his upset win over Lundy

This bout - for the NABF lightweight title - is live on ESPN2 in the USA and features two guys who are not the biggest names in the division, but are always picked for fights on the regular Friday night bills on the channel or their rival ShoBox, the main reason being they always give fans exciting fights. This fight has a lot riding on it now though, with both guys in winning form, and in the top 20 of the divisional rankings.

Beltran spiralled up the rankings with a fantastic majority decision win over Hank Lundy in his last bout, coming through some rough patches early on, to outwork the Philly man down the stretch. A lot of people knew Beltran would give Lundy a hard night's work, but it was a major upset to see him win. Kim also comes into this on the back of an upset victory, having like Beltran, outworked his last opponent, the unbeaten Russian Alisher Rahimov, for a unanimous decision over 10 rounds.

Kim (left) beat the unbeaten Rahimov last time out

This bout has the makings of a serious Fight Of The Year candidate, there might not be a lot of Boxing on show, these are two guys with great engines, they love to throw punches, and defence is very likely to go out of the window after the midway point. Dragon Boxing likes Beltran in this fight, Kim is probably the more limited of the two, and Raymundo will match him for work rate and energy.

The undercard sees some quality prospects on show, the most notable being Jose Benavidez, who fights out of the Wildcard and is unbeaten in 17 fights. He's a welterweight prospect with some wonderful skills, but comes into this fight having been shaken up in the final round of his last bout with 17-7-1 Mexican Pavel Miranda. Thursday night he's scheduled to take on the less dangerous Jesus Selig, who's a Mexican based in Arizona, and the choice of opponent suggests Top Rank are still being cautious with Jose.

Unbeaten Benavidez with the legendary Freddie Roach

A title fight on the undercard sees Jesse Magdaleno face Jonathan Arrellano for the WBO NABO youth super bantamweight belt, which means absolutely nothing to me, but will earn the winner a high ranking with the WBO and put them in the world title contention far sooner than they should be. Jesse is regarded as the most talented of the Magdaleno brothers, and has been incredibly impressive in his short pro career. Jesse is most definitely one to watch, but California's Arrellano has never been stopped and gave unbeaten prospect Roman Morales a tough night in his last bout. You want to see young fighters like Magdaleno progress in their career and this is a fight that should tell us more about him.

Take note of 12-0 Magdaleno

"The Russian Mexican" Evgeny Gradovich makes an appearance on this bill, with the world #38 Featherweight clashing with light hitting New Mexican Willie Villanueva, who was stopped in a round by a then 11-0 Gary Russell Jr in September 2010. This seems like nothing less than a keep busy fight for the exciting Gradovich, who judged by his nickname always comes to fight, and has been involved in a fair few entertaining bouts since turning pro in March 2010.

Verdejo (right) makes his pro debut

Finally the card sees the debut of 2012 Olympian Felix Verdejo, who represented Puerto Rico. Verdejo has signed with Top Rank and is set to campaign at 130lbs as a pro, four months since he reached the quarter finals of the lightweight division tournament, losing to the eventual Gold medallist, Ukraine's exceptionally good Vasyl Lomachenko, who won his second consecutive Olympic Gold. His performances as an amateur have been good and just being 19 years old, he has a lot of time to learn his craft. After what happened with Miguel Cotto at the weekend and also Thomas Dulorme a couple of months ago, Puerto Ricans are searching for the next big thing, could it be Verdejo?