STAMFORD, Conn. (January 19, 2007) – VERSUS, in collaboration with leading boxing promoter Top Rank, today announced that the IBF light flyweight world championship will be up for grabs in a showdown between Mexico’s Ulises Solis (22-1-2, 16 KOs) and Will Grigsby (18-3-1, 7 KOs) of St. Paul, MN. The fighters will headline the network’s second live Fight Night telecast of the New Year on Thursday, January 25 at 9 p.m. ET from The Orleans Arena in Las Vegas..
The 12-round match is expected to bring high energy and maximum effort from two men who have been down this road before. It was a little more than a year ago that Solis captured the title from Grigsby in a 12-round unanimous decision at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Fight Night viewers will again be able to score the bouts from home through the VERSUS website at VERSUS.com. These viewer scores will be posted throughout the telecast. Scoring from home mostly recently was used on the VERSUS January 11 Fight Night telecast.
Featured on the undercard on VERSUS will be a 10-round heavyweight battle between the rising star of the heavyweight division, Tye “Big Sky” Fields (36-1, 33 KOs) as he takes on Kendrick Releford (14-8-1, 5 KOs). Fields, who recently signed a promotional deal with Top Rank, brings an impressive streak of 20 straight victories—16 by knockout—to the match in Las Vegas.
“Big Sky” is an extremely popular boxing figure in Las Vegas and is a monster of a man, standing in at 6’8” and 260 lbs. The southpaw is managed by Billy Baxter who previously managed champions Roger Mayweather, Vernon Forrest and Bruce Curry. Fields is trained by Jesse Reid who has worked with many champions including Johnny Tapia, Gaby and Orlando Canizales. Releford of Forth Worth, TX has ranked as high as #10 by the WBO.
Wally Matthews, a veteran boxing writer who has covered the sport for two decades, and Bob Papa, who has called boxing for ESPN and currently for NBC, will host. Michael Buffer, the tuxedoed announcer who coined the catchphrase “Let’s get ready to rumble!” will again serve as the ring announcer for the live fights.
VERSUS (VERSUS.com) celebrates real competition in all its forms. The network is the national cable home of the National Hockey League (NHL) and the Stanley Cup Playoffs as well as best-in-class events like The Tour de France, the America’s Cup, the Dakar Rally, the Professional Bull Riders (PBR), Professional Boxing, the Boston Marathon and Davis Cup. Now in more than 70 million homes, the network features the best field sports programming on television and is a destination for sports fans, athletes and sportsmen to find exclusive, competitive events that audiences can’t find elsewhere. The network offers unique, competition-themed original programming and is the exclusive home of Survivor in syndication. VERSUS, a wholly owned company of Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA, CMCSK), is distributed via cable systems and satellite operators throughout the United States.