HBO World Championship Boxing presents a night of rising stars from the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey headlined by a WBC lightweight championship main event, undefeated champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (25-0, 21 KOs) will defend his WBC lightweight title on Saturday, February 16 against Britain’s Gavin Rees (37-1-1, 18 KOs), and the opening bout of the HBO televised broadcast is a super middleweight bout Sakio Bika (30-5-2, 21 KOs) vs. Nikola Sjekloca (25-0, 7 KOs).
Broner is undefeated, flashy, slick, and outspoken like his boyhood idol Floyd Mayweather Jr., both share a similar confidence in and out of the ring that you either love or hate, but putting aside his confident demeanor Broner has the skills and to back up his tough talk. Rees is a blue collar fighter from the UK, he is a former 140-pound champion, and a huge underdog on Saturday night, he looks to pull off the upset against Broner and bring the title home to the UK.
The Bika vs. Sjekloca 12-round super-middleweight bout was bumped up to the televised broadcast, when the Seth Mitchell vs. Jonathon Banks heavyweight rematch was postponed due to injury. Bika is best known to US fans from his stint on the reality series “The Contender”, and has fought some of the best super-middleweights in the world including Joe Calzaghe, Andre Ward, Lucian Bute. Sjekloca is an undefeated contender from Montenegro who has mainly fought overseas, this will be his first bout in the USA.
Watch HBO World Championship Boxing: Adrien Broner vs. Gavin Rees and Sakio Bika vs. Nikola Sjekloca live at 10:30 PM ET/PT Saturday, February 16, 2012 on HBO.
