Joshua Buatsi vs Daniel Blenda Dos Santos Preview, Tips, Odds & Prediction

On a card which was set to Terri Harper aiming to unify the Super Featherweight division against Hyun Mi Choi, we now see 2016 Olympic bronze medalist Joshua Buatsi headline a seven-fight card which includes three European title bouts, an English title bout and Buatsi defending his WBA international light heavyweight title.

The card also sees the highly anticipated debuts of ex GB elite squad heavyweight Sol Dacres and the highly-rated Ellis Hopkins, and we'll give you our tips and prediction for each fight.

The first European title fight of the night sees domestic rivals Gamai Yafai and Jason Cunningham clash for the EBU European super bantamweight title.

Yafai, younger brother to ex-world champ Kai and older brother to Tokyo 2021 Olympics hopeful Galal, was once seen as one of the hottest prospects in British boxing having won his first 14 bouts before coming unstuck against the experienced Gavin McDonnell. He's bounced back well from that defeat and comes into the fight on a four-fight win streak including three stoppages.

Cunningham, meanwhile, has been seen as what people refer to as a 'gatekeeper' in the lighter divisions of the British boxing scene. With 28 wins and six losses coming from his 34 fights to date, his losses have come to high level operators such as Jordan Gill, Michael Conlan, Reece Belloti and Gamal's older brother Kal. He's just, unfortunately, never really been able to take that step up to anything above domestic level.

Yafai will be looking to make a statement here. Cunningham can be tricky and he will use his experience and tricky southpaw stance to frustrate the younger man but expect Yafai to potentially lose a few of early rounds, but then kick in to full gear the longer the bout goes on to claim a unanimous points victory

Prediction: Gamal Yafai to win by Decision/Technical Decision

Now for what we believe could potentially be a fight of the night contender, mainly because in our eyes it involves the biggest prospect in British boxing, Sheffield's Dalton Smith.

Since having a stellar amateur career, he turned professional almost two years ago to the day and he's not looked back since. Seven wins from seven bouts including six stoppages, his free-flowing, composed, easy-on-the-eye style with legitimate punch power have seen him become highly regarded as a future world champ.

This will, however, be his toughest fight to date in a proper Yorkshire derby against the experienced former English lightweight champion, Lee Appleyard. A 21-fight career mixed full of emotions, he's picked up wins against the likes of Adam Hague & Ben Fields but has suffered stoppage defeats to Atif Shafiq and Chris Conwell in the process.

Trained by one of the most underrated trainers in the country in the shape of his old man Grant Smith, picking up the English title will give him the platform to potentially look at claiming British then European honours in the next year or so.

Expect Appleyard to start the fight fast and try to unsettle the younger man and try to stop him from getting in a rhythm which he's so far shown he's absolutely deadly in when he gets into it. Smith has an old head on his young shoulder and he'll look to mix it on the inside early to make Appleyard respect his power and then systematically break him down off the back foot then look to get the stoppage mid to late rounds.

Prediction: Dalton Smith to win by KO/TKO/DQ between rounds 6-10

After an early career loss to Matty Askin, Tommy McCarthy returned to form with a four-fight win streak before being simply outpunched by the hard-hitting Richard Riakporhe two years. He's gone on to pick up four wins on the bounce since that defeat however picking up the WBC International title and most recently the EBU European title both at cruiserweight and he'll be looking to extend that win streak to five with victory against the relatively unknown Alexandru Jur.

A record with not many familiar names on it, Jur has struggled on every occasion he's stepped up to elite level with stoppage losses to Dmitry Kudryashov and most recently Aleksei Papin, with the Romanian failing to see the end of the third round in either of those fights.

This is one of those fights where it looks perfect for McCarthy to look good. He doesn't carry a lot of punching power, but what he does boast is accumulative power combined with his boxing IQ and natural boxing skills.

McCarthy should have plenty of success in the fight with his jab and then accurate back hand which he loves to throw but expect Jur to be tough without asking too many questions of the Northern Irishman.

Prediction: Tommy McCarthy to win by Decision/Technical Decision

Lerrone Richards has been one of the standout most consistent performance on the domestic 168lbs scene of late picking victories up over Tommy Langford for the Commonwealth title in April of 2019 and then defending that title and picking up the British title in a split decision defeat of Lennox Clarke later that year.

He returned from over a year out in his last bout to defeat the durable journeyman, Timo Laine, but he will be looking to kick on now under the tutelage of Dave Coldwell up in Rotherham.

De Carolis meanwhile has had a pretty different career to Richards so far. 28 victories, nine defeats and a draw from his 38 bouts in the paid ranks so far, he's a former world champion having beaten Vincent Feigenbutz in 2016 however since then he's won just four of his last eight fights.

He has though picked up some momentum of late with three victories from his last three fights and claiming the WBC International super middleweight title in his last fight so he comes into the bout with Richards full of momentum.

Richards's tricky southpaw style has seen him cause nightmares for opponents throughout his career, but he'll need more than that awkward style to defeat the much more experienced Italian here. His lack of punch power and inability to properly sit down on his shots has been one of his downfalls so far so Richards's is going to have to start going through the gears early to stop this fight from becoming a bull against a matador.

De Carolis will know about Richards's lack of punch power and he'll look to force the pace of the fight and cut the ring off, but do expect Richards to be intelligent and win this fight quite comfortably on points.

Prediction: Lerrone Richards to win by Decision/Technical Decision

One of the biggest prospects in world boxing, Joshua Buatsi, takes on the ninth-best light heavyweight *in France* in the shape of Daniel Blenda Dos Santos.

Buatsi, who won bronze at the 2016 Olympics, has made light work of almost every opponent in his 13-bout career so far in the professional ranks with a victory coming in all 13 of those bouts, 11 of which are stoppages and he currently finds himself on an eight-fight stoppage streak.

Similarly to Buatsi, Dos Santos is also unbeaten, however, from his 15 fights to date, he's fought just three opponents with a winning record which compared to Buatsi's 10 from 13 fights shows just the difference in opposition in which the pair have been coming up against.

On paper, this fight is a complete and utter mismatch and in reality, this fight is a complete and utter mismatch.

The most intriguing aspect of it is Buatsi's recent link up with Virgil Hunter, the man who guided Andre Ward to become an Olympic gold medalist as an amateur and a two weight world champion as a professional and one of THEE best boxers of this generation.

Dos Santos has nothing to lose in this fight and that's shown by the bookies pricing him up at 20/1 to win the bout but Buatsi should take care of him pretty easily and expect the Brit to get rid of him fairly early.

Prediction: Joshua Buatsi to win in rounds 1-6