Golden Boy on ESPN returns Thursday night in Tucson, Arizona featuring a main event of Diego De La Hoya versus Erik Ruiz in the super bantamweight division. Diego is Oscar De La Hoya’s twenty two year old cousin. Undefeated super middleweight prospect D’Mitrius Ballard also fights in the co-feature.

Diego De La Hoya (17-0, 9 KOs) is not, at least in my view, a blue chip prospect. He is a talented young fighter, but he will also need to improve a lot going forward if he wants to become a champion. Given how he has been matched lately, it is probably a given that Golden Boy Promotions agrees to at least some extent. The De La Hoya name will take Diego a long way in the business, however, as long as he can become at least a fringe top ten fighter.

Erik Ruiz (16-6-1, 6 KOs) is not an exception to the rule that Diego will be matched soft. Ruiz has never been stopped, but he has been shut out on all three cards every time he has stepped up to world level. This is including in his last fight against Rico Ramos. The expectation here is that this trend will hold. Diego De La Hoya is a fluid, high volume combination puncher who lands a lot, but rarely ever hurts his opponents. Ruiz will likely be able to last the distance if he so chooses.

The co-feature might be marginally more competitive when D’Mitrius Ballard (16-0, 12 KOs) meets Denis Douglin (20-5, 13 KOs) in the super middleweight division, but probably not. Doughlin has been in and stopped by the likes of David Benavidez, George Groves, and Jermell Charlo. The last time he beat a fighter both with double digit wins and without double digit losses was in 2012 when he upset an 11-0 fighter on Friday Night Fights.

The only reason this fight might be more competitive is that Ballard is more of an unknown than De La Hoya. He has been a consistent part of Golden Boy cards for the past couple years, but other than one or two appearances on little watched Estrella TV undercards, he hasn’t been getting TV slots. When I was able to see Ballard in person on the Lemieux/Stevens undercard, he was matched against a much smaller, basically hopeless opponent in a fight in which I was able to learn very little.

This is not a great show, but I must admit that Golden Boy has done a pretty good job balancing showcase cards like this one with well matched free TV main events like Gamboa/Castellanos, Quigley/Tapia, and Orozco/Gibson overall. It is inevitable that a promoter will sometimes use this opportunity as a showcase for its younger fighters. I suspect there will be a few more of this Diego De La Hoya showcase cards in the future as well.

The broadcast this time around has been upgraded to ESPN proper at 10 PM instead of the normal ESPN2 home of these cards. That likely speaks to the name value Diego De La Hoya brings even if he is yet to earn it in the ring. Coverage is also available at WatchESPN.com. As is becoming traditional for this series, WatchESPN starts earlier, this time at 8:30, and broadcasts a few more fights than the TV edition.

22 year old lightweight prospect Robert Manzanarez (34-1, 28 KOs) will be featured there in the off TV portion of the internet broadcast. His opponent will be Erick Martinez (13-6-1, 7 KOs).