Former two-time world title challenger Miguel Marriaga will go for his second win in a row when he takes on Jose Estrella in a featherweight fight on Nov. 3 on a Top Rank Boxing on ESPN+ card, Top Rank announced on Tuesday.
The scheduled eight-round fight will be on the undercard of the show (ESPN+, main card at 9:30 p.m. ET with preliminaries beginning at 6 p.m. ET) headlined by the previously announced mandatory bout between junior lightweight world titleholder Miguel Berchelt and Mexican countryman Miguel “Micky” Roman at the Don Haskins Center in El Paso, Texas.
“I am excited to be back on a great card, and I look forward to winning impressively and getting back to world title contention,” Marriaga said. “There are a lot of great featherweights out there, and I am here to prove that I am one of them.”
Marriaga (26-3, 22 KOs), 31, of Colombia, fought for world titles twice in 2017. He challenged Oscar Valdez for a featherweight belt in April of that year and lost a unanimous decision in a fierce fight and then in August suffered a seventh-round knockout loss to then-junior lightweight titleholder Vasiliy Lomachenko.
Marriaga returned in May in Colombia and knocked out Derlinson Buriel in the fourth round.
Estrella (20-14-1, 14 KOs), 28, of Mexico, has faced several notable opponents — Luis Nery, Diego De La Hoya and Christopher Diaz among them — but lost each time.
Also on the undercard, junior lightweight prospect Robson Conceicao (9-0, 5 KOs), 29, a 2016 Brazilian Olympic gold medalist, will take on Joey Laviolette (9-1, 5 KOs), 30, of Nova Scotia, in an eight-round fight.
Other undercard fights include Saul “Neno” Rodriguez (21-0-1, 15 KOs), who will return from a 20-month layoff, versus Claudio Tapia (28-18-4, 13 KOs) in a 10-round lightweight bout; Sagadat Rakhmankul (3-0, 1 KO), an Egis Klimas-managed prospect, against Nicklaus Flaz (5-1, 4 KOs) in an eight-round welterweight fight; super middleweight prospect Janibek Alimkhanuly (3-0, 1 KO) against Vaughn Alexander (12-1, 8 KOs), the older brother of former two-division world titleholder Devon Alexander, in an eight-rounder; El Paso middleweight Zach Prieto (3-0, 2 KOs) against Michael Andrews (1-2, 0 KOs) in a four-rounder; and Paul Krool (1-0, 1 KOs) in a four-round welterweight contest against an opponent to be determined.