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Austin Trout, Antonio Tarver, Marcus Browne top Dec. 11 card

Fighters Network
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Austin Trout, Antonio Tarver and undefeated Marcus Browne will appear in separate bouts at the Pechanga Resort and Casino in Temecula, Calif. on Dec. 11, ESPN and Tom Brown of Goossen Promotions announced on Friday.

Trout (27-2, 14 knockouts) will face junior middleweight Luis Grajeda (18-3-2, 14 KOs) in the headliner with former RING light heavyweight champion Tarver (30-6, 21 KOs) against Johnathon Banks (29-2-1, 19 KOs) in a heavyweight fight.



Also on the card, Browne (12-0, 9 KOs) will face Henry Buchanan (21-4, 14 KOs) in a light heavyweight clash and Oscar Escandon (23-1, 16 KOs) takes on Tyson Cave (24-2, 8 KOs) in a junior featherweight battle.

The card will honor the late promoter, Dan Goossen, who died in September at the age of 64 of complications from liver cancer.

“We wanted to do something special in honor of Dan and we thought of no better way than to put on a great night of boxing just like he had done for so many years on ESPN,” said Brian Kweder, senior director of programming and acquisitions at ESPN.

“Dan’s contributions to the sport of boxing are well documented but he was also a joy to work with and be around. I’m hopeful that he has a ringside seat wherever he may be for these fights.”

Trout has gone 2-2 over the course of his past four fights. In his last bout in August at the Pechanga, Trout rose from two third-round knockdowns and floored Daniel Dawson in the eighth of a 10-round unanimous decision, ending an eight-month ring absence.

Grajeda, 27, has gone 4-2-1, with four knockouts over the course of his past seven fights and was last in the ring for a thrid-round stoppage win over Charly Soto last month.

During an earlier interview with RingTV.com, Trout said he has been training in Washington, D.C. at the same gym as IBF junior welterweight titleholder Lamont Peterson.

Tarver, 46, has returned to training after having suffered a fractured thumb on his left hand that forced him to pull out of a Sept. 29 bout against Banks.

A 1996 Olympic bronze medalist, Tarver’s most recent fight was a fourth-round stoppage of Mike Sheppard in November of last year that ended a 17-month ring absence.

Best known for winning two of three bouts against Roy Jones Jr., Tarver won their second meeting by second-round stoppage victory in May of 2004. Tarver also owns wins over ex-light heavyweight titleholders such as Glen Johnson, Clinton Woods and Montell Griffin.

Banks, 32, split his past two bouts with Seth Mitchell, winning by second-round stoppage in November 2012 to extend his winning streak to 9-0-1 with five knockouts before falling by unanimous decision in their rematch in June 2013.

A Detroit native, Banks is the trainer of RING heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko and was formerly advised and trained by the late Emanuel Steward, to whom he served as an assistant.

Browne, 24, has scored consecutive knockouts in 91 and 28 seconds over Donta Woods in June and Paul Vasquez in August, respectively.

Buchanan, 36, is 4-3 with two knockouts in his past seven fights, being stopped in the first round of his last fight by Alexander Johnson in September.

Escandon, 30, is coming off a sixth-round knockout of Julian Evaristo Aristule in August to rebound from a split decision loss to Nehomar Cermeno in August 2013. The loss to Cermeno ended a run of three consecutive stoppage wins by Escandon.

Cave, 33, has won nine consecutive fights, three by knockout, since falling by technical decision to AJ Banal in July 2011. Cave was last in action for a unanimous decision over Sebastien Gauthier in April.

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