The first of two days worth of starters comes on Thursday night at the Gretna Heritage Festival, in Gretna, Louisiana.
The card, put on by the promotional company of Les Bonano features two interesting looking Heavyweight bouts, including just our second ever female bout.
We'll start with that female bout which features the unbeaten Sydney LeBlanc (3-0-1) battling Tiffany Woodard (4-6-3, 3) over 6 rounds. Although the unbeaten LeBlanc will likely be favoured, at least on paper, it is worth noting that Woodward has fought the tougher competition and actually held Sonya Lamonakis to a draw last year and has the power to hurt decent opponents, possibly including LeBlanc here.
The second bout, and probably the more important one, sees the unbeaten Uzbek Ahror Muralimov (14-0, 11) in action against former US Golden Gloves champion Nathan James (9-2, 5). This will be "Aha's" first fight since scraping a majority decision over the gigantic Evgeny Orlov and he'll certainly need to put on a better performance against James.
Unfortunately James has been a notable disappointment since turning professional in 2008. Having run up an excellent 83-11 amateur records many had high hopes for the "The Storm" though an early stoppage loss to Curtis Harper in his fifth bout and a second stoppage loss just bouts later seem to have derailed his very early promises.
Despite the fact Muralimov is a small Heavyweight and James has looked somewhat fragile we do expect a very solid contest here and one that should be entertaining. Even if it doesn't last very long.