The 5 best boxing matches in October, featuring Joseph Parker and Sebastian Fundora
September wasn’t too shabby, was it?
We enjoyed a buffet of pound-for-pound kings and ex-kings — Naoya Inoue, Terence Crawford, Saul "Canelo" Alvarez and Roman "Chocolatito" Gonzalez — all adding to their CVs with a curious blend of performances.
Now, October? OK, it might not have the same star power. But don’t you dare write it off yet. There are still scraps worth staying up for, caffeine in hand, ready to shout at your TV like it owes you money.
So, let’s rummage through the schedule and pick out five of the absolute best coming up this month.
5. Sebastian Fundora vs. Keith Thurman, Oct. 25
I could watch Fundora fight every week and still not get bored — he’s basically the must-watch series I never want to end.
"The Towering Inferno” is 6-foot-5 1/2 and somehow still makes 154 pounds without looking like he’s been flattened by a steamroller. He’s already torched a pile of contenders and looks annoyingly comfortable doing it.
His CV: 23-1-1 (15 KOs), a shiny WBC light middleweight belt strapped to his waist and he’s just signed up for a six-year engineering course at Harvard. Yep, while you’re still trying to figure out your Wi-Fi password, this man is juggling title fights and lecture halls.
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Outside the ring, Fundora is polite, intelligent and charmingly geeky — like the classmate whose homework you’d copy. But inside the ropes? He throws down like someone who’s been told the bar’s run dry.
Next up is Thurman (31-1, 23 KOs) — 36 years old, one fight after a three-year hiatus and still clinging onto the “One Time” nickname even though it’s starting to sound a bit like false advertising. On paper, Fundora should handle him. But even if it ends up one-way traffic, it’ll still be the kind of traffic that turns heads and makes headlines.
Should he cruise through unscathed, expect the likes of Xander Zayas and Vergil Ortiz Jr. to start circling like hungry seagulls at a seaside chip shop, all desperate to snatch — and add to — their crowns at 154.
4. Dave Allen vs. Arslanbek Makhmudov, Oct. 11
If you’d told me a year ago that Allen (24-7-2, 19 KOs) would be stepping in with the bear-wrestling skyscraper that is Makhmudov (20-2, 19 KOs), I’d have ordered you an Uber home.
Allen, now 33, has had the kind of career graph that looks like a child’s drawing of a rollercoaster — wild highs, crushing dips and the occasional loop-de-loop. Just when it seemed like his days were fading into the “remember him” category, the phone buzzed.
On the other end? His old mate, Eddie Hearn, and Hearn’s new heavyweight toy, Johnny Fisher. Following a controversial split-decision loss to Fisher in their first scrap, Allen flipped the script and stopped “The Romford Bull” in five in the sequel.
Suddenly, "The White Rhino” is back grazing happily at the top of Matchroom’s menu, the flavor of the month once again, and granted the biggest stage of his career.
Makhmudov will start as a slight favorite in Sheffield, but with an army of loyal support in his corner, we could be set for another magical and memorable chapter in the Dave Allen story.
3. Kieron Conway vs. George Liddard, Oct. 17
50-50 fight? Tick. British title fight? Tick. York Hall in London? Tick.
Conway’s (23-3-1, 7 KOs) defense of his British and Commonwealth middleweight titles against Liddard (12-0, 7 KOs) simply can’t disappoint. And you can quote me on that.
Since losing to “Ammo” Williams in 2022, Conway has gone 5-0 en route to the top of Britain’s domestic scene at 160 pounds, and the promising unbeaten George Liddard wants to knock him off his perch.
The sweat-stained walls of Bethnal Green’s York Hall will echo once more with a contest so finely balanced the bookmakers can barely call it — a long-awaited return to the kind of evenly matched domestic battles British fight fans have been thirsting for.
2. O’Shaquie Foster vs. Stephen Fulton Jr., Oct. 25
It’s champion vs. champion on the undercard of Fundora-Thurman, as the WBC titleholders at featherweight and super featherweight throw it down for Foster’s 130-pound strap.
We’ve had to wait for this one. Originally slated for the co-main of the now-canned Gervonta Davis vs. Lamont Roach Jr. rematch, Foster and Fulton will finally face off inside Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Foster (23-3, 12 KOs) sees this as a huge opportunity to register a big scalp on his record. For Fulton (23-1, 8 KOs), it's a chance to position himself in (another) new weight class after rebuilding from a damaging loss to Naoya Inoue in 2023 — one that he has since claimed to be the “best thing that happened” to him.
“Shock” Foster isn’t known for his power, but will be targeting the whiskers of the smaller man in an attempt to register his second stoppage victory since late-2020.
Once again, Foster-Fulton is looking close to a coin-toss fight, with any outcome possible.
1. Joseph Parker vs. Fabio Wardley, Oct. 25
Parker (36-3, 24) is choosing to stay active rather than sit on his ranking and await a title shot with Oleksandr Usyk.
The affable Kiwi has enjoyed an active six-fight win streak since losing to Joe Joyce in 2022, beating contenders Deontay Wilder, Zhilei Zhang and Martin Bakole — so why not add one more to the list?
That’s the thinking in selecting the unbeaten Wardley (19-0-1, 18 KOs).
Wardley is a hard-hitting contender looking to climb a few more rungs in the rankings and put to rest any concerns after his 10th-round KO of Justis Huni, who had outboxed the Ipswich fighter for the majority of the bout.
The stakes are always high in the heavyweight division, but when you’re one step away from a shot at the undisputed championship, things dial up a notch. Add the cauldron of noise that is London’s O2 Arena, and we’ve got the potential for fireworks.
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