As part of ESPN’s free preview of the Crawford-Porter pay-per-view event, the ESPN app will broadcast 2016 US Olympian Carlos Balderas (10-1 with 9 KOs) of Santa Maria, CA taking on Ecuador's Julio Cortez (15-3 with 11 KOs), of San Jose, CA, in a scheduled six-round lightweight bout. The action begins today (Saturday) at 6:00pm ET / 3:00pm PT. In his last bout, on August 14th, Balderas (pictured) stopped 9-1-1 Fidel Cervantez in two rounds to rebound from the knockout loss he suffered in December 2019 against Juan Rene Tellez Giron. Coming from a boxing family, Balderas is trained by his father, Zenon, and is the younger brother of bantamweight Jose Balderas. Cortez has only fought twice outside of his native Ecuador, losing both times. In his US debut on August 18th, Cortez took unbeaten Albert Bell the distance over eight rounds in a losing effort.   

 

Also on the free preview, 2021 US Olympian Delante “Tiger” Johnson of Cleveland makes his pro debut in a four-round welterweight clash against Antonius Grable (3-1-1 with 3 KOs), of Sarasota, FL. As an amateur, Johnson won gold at the Elite World Championships twice, Elite National Championships twice, the 2016 Youth World Championships and 2014 National Junior Olympics. Grable is coming off of a draw against 8-0 Robert Kevin Garcia on August 26, in Garcia’s home state of Texas.