GIOVANNI SEGURA vs CESAR CANCHILA

Exciting 108-pounder Giovanni Segura should have been fighting for the WBA title against Brahim Asloum in France on Saturday but the show was cancelled due to the promoter’s dissatisfaction with a French TV offer.

Happily, Segura’s hard work in preparing for Asloum will not be wasted because he is boxing on the Cotto-Margarito PPV bill on Saturday, when he appears in an interim WBA title fight against a Colombian named Cesar Canchila.

Readers will know that I have a high regard for Segura, an aggressive boxer-fighter who switches from orthodox to the southpaw style and can land heavy shots from either position.

Segura has been eager for a big fight for more than a year and must have been wondering if the opportunity would ever arrive. Now that he gets his chance, boxing on one of the biggest shows of the year, I am expecting him to make the most of it.

Canchila has won 26 of his 27 bouts, with 21 opponents stopped, but the quality of his opposition has been unremarkable. He presumably gets the championship fight largely because he won a WBA Latin stepping-stone title, although Canchila stopped a former world title challenger from Nicaragua. His only loss was on a cut eye stoppage and he avenged the defeat with a stoppage win.

Eleven years ago in Las Vegas a then-obscure Colombian, Mauricio Pastrana, shocked the boxing word by beating Michael Carbajal in this same light-flyweight division, so you never can tell with these “unknown quantity” fighters. I would be very surprised if Segura lost, though, and knowing his hunger for success I would expect him to put heavy pressure on the Colombian and, at a guess, stop him in eight or nine rounds.