Victor Ortiz on HBO, Arthur Abraham on Showtime top busy fight night

June 26, 11:26 PMSF Boxing ExaminerColin Seymour

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When Victor Ortiz last fought, here in San Jose on March 7 on HBO, Oscar De La Hoya said HBO would be back in San Jose soon, and we all left the Shark Tank thinking June 27 would be soon enough.

A lot of fights have fallen through in the meantime, but there are several bouts of interest Saturday. Ortiz is fighting on HBO in one of the most important, though it won’t be fought in San Jose.

And it won’t be part of a doubleheader on HBO. The co-main was to have been the featherweight title rematch between Chris John and Rocky Juarez, who fought to a draw Jan. 31 in a bout most of us thought John won. The rematch was postponed because John has a blood disorder that we’re assured isn’t leukemia or anything life-threatening but might be worse than anemia.

So Ortiz’s bout with Argentinian Marcos Rene Maidana (25-1, 24 knockouts) for the interim WBA junior welterweight title will be the lone HBO bout. It might be the best bout of the night, although Maidana’s lone defeat came by decision in his last fight in a bid for that same WBA belt. HBO apparently isn’t showing what now is the No. 2 bout on that card, as unbeaten Scotsman Craig McEwan, my buddy from Freddie Roach’s Wild Card stable, fights a 16-10 junior middleweight opponent.

The most intriguing bout of the evening, airing at 9 p.m. on Showtime, actually takes place hours earlier, as unbeaten IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham defends against once-beaten Mahir Oral in Germany. Abraham is one of the most important fighters in a historically important division.

Juan Manuel Lopez, the sensational Puerto Rican WBO junior featherweight champion, faces Olivier Lontchi in the main event of a pay-per-view card produced by Top Rank. That card lost a lot of juice when WBO bantamweight champion Fernando Montiel had to pull out of the sub-main event against Eric Morel.

Junior lightweight sensation Jorge Linares seems to be fighting his oft-postponed WBA title bout with heavy underdog Josafat Perez in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, but I haven’t figured out yet whether telecasters Cadena Tres and Multimedios have outlets on my Comcast cable lineup. You might find it on Sky TV.

If that’s more boxing than you can possibly watch, access or afford, consider what else you’re not missing:

Cristobal Cruz’s IBF featherweight title defense against Jorge Solis in Chiapas, Mexico has been moved to July 11.

And Amir Khan, the English glamour boy, was to challenge Andreas Kotelnik for the WBA junior welterweight title that Kotelnik won by beating Maidana, the guy who’s fighting Ortiz for the WBA “interim” title. The Kotelnik-Khan fight has been moved to July 18.

Let’s hope HBO can explain the difference between the two WBA junior welterweight titles, although that probably won’t happen, as HBO disdains the alphabet organizations’ title proclamations precisely because of absurdities like this.