Mason prepares for Bell bout on July 4, Zuffa event underway

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Obviously pretty busy few days coming as far as American holidays go next weekend, so the schedule is fairly light, but there’s some good stuff scheduled. Also: Generally I will now defer to including Sunday night cards with the prior week, but I legit just forgot about the Zuffa card happening tonight, so here’s your alert if you have also forgotten. Sunday, June 28 Zuffa Boxing 08: Edwin De Los Santos vs Jose Valenzuela 2 (Paramount+, 9:00 pm ET) Bad Left Hook will have live results and discussion Zuffa’s back in Vegas, though at the Cosmopolitan and not the “Meta Apex.” The main event is a lightweight rematch of a 2022 fight you may or may not remember from the Andy Ruiz (!) vs Luis Ortiz (!!) PBC (!!!) on FOX (!!!!) pay-per-view, where De Los Santos stopped Valenzuela in the third round and took his “0.” Pretty wild fight, Valenzuela was down in the second, once in the third, and De Los Santos was also down once in the second and was docked a point for hitting Valenzuela while he was down. Since then, Valenzuela (15-3, 9 KO) has been up and down. He lost a very controversial decision to Chris Colbert then got pretty definitive revenge by beating the crap out of and stopping Colbert in a rematch nine months later at the end of 2023. He briefly held the WBA belt at 140 after upsetting Pitbull Cruz in 2024, then lost that in one-sided fashion to Gary Antuanne Russell in 2025. He last fought in February on a Zuffa card, beating Diego Torres. De Los Santos (17-2, 15 KO) has also had a notable event since 2022, when he fought Shakur Stevenson in a fight so bad that Stevenson briefly “retired” after everyone telling him how bad the fight was so many times. But Edwin is not himself boring by nature, nor is Valenzuela. It’s a good rematch for a Sunday evening. On the undercard: Nice looking welterweight matchup between Cain Sandoval and Brandun Lee, the latter you may recall from some pretty good ShoBox hype that turned into stagnation and, currently, having not fought in a year and only twice in the last three years. Zuffa’s a chance for him to get his career back in order, and at 27, if he’s gonna actually be a contender, yeah, time to get going. This is no easy fight, though, this is a legit way to come back. … Omar Trinidad will also be in action at featherweight, facing veteran Jerwin Ancajas, a former super flyweight titlist who is in his declining years. I’ve never been entirely sold on Trinidad, so I’m cautiously open to the chance of Ancajas, fighting three divisions over his best weight, potentially surprising some people with Veteran Grit. … Prelims will start at 6 pm ET and will be headlined by bantamweight Floyd “Cashflow” Diaz (14-0, 3 KO), whom you may recall from various Top Rank prelims of their ESPN+ prelims era. He fought in January for Zuffa after not fighting since September 2024. Whatever hype there was behind him has definitely faded, but he’s still unbeaten, and he faces Jose Teran in a 10-rounder. Saturday, July 4 Abdullah Mason vs Albert Bell (DAZN and TNT, 8:00 pm ET) Bad Left Hook will have live results and discussion From Cleveland. To clear any confusion, this will stream on DAZN for subscribers and air on TNT, the first of the new “The Fight” series, which for now will run monthly. Hopefully it goes well! And I’m glad they have decided to do a simulcast, which should really maximize the audience and make more people aware of DAZN and how much boxing is available on DAZN that they might want to check out if they enjoy the TNT events. I know it seems ludicrous, but there are still people who just don’t really know what the hell DAZN is or where all the boxing that used to be on HBO and ESPN went, especially given boxing’s, uh, aging fan base who don’t necessarily hear about every niche streaming service. Bell was available and in training for a fight with Andy Cruz, so he should be in shape. He’s bumping himself up two weeks from his expected fight date, but he cannot pass on an opportunity like this, and he’ll have extra motivation here, as he stalled on Top Rank prelims before parting ways, and now he has a chance to upset one of their most valuable young stars. It’s also now got more local flavor, as this is Cleveland vs Toledo. All things considered, I think this really might be a tougher fight for Mason than Cordina was going to be, with respect to Cordina. Bell is a tricky proposition, a spoiler, and not the kind of guy you’d ever want to face on short notice. On the undercard: Featherweight titleholder Bruce “Shu-Shu” Carrington defends against Rene Palacios. Like Mason, it’s a first defense for Carrington, who won the WBC title in January. … Welterweight Tiger Johnson takes a nice-looking matchup with Canada’s Christopher Guerrero, which could be a show stealer. Very well-matched on paper, like a good ShoBox main event from years past. … Presumably there will be prelims that stream exclusively on DAZN, as younger Mason brothers Ibrahim Mason and Abudrrahman Mason are also in action, as well as lightweight prospect Deric “Scooter” Davis, who is courageous enough to not be nicknamed something alliterative, like “Dynamite” or “Dangerous.”