A few minutes after Amanda Serrano crushed Calixta Silgado in a first-round knockout victory to retain her women's featherweight world title on July 30 on the Carl Frampton-Leo Santa Cruz undercard, Serrano ran into Showtime Sports general manager Stephen Espinoza in the tunnel at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Espinoza, who has become more and more a fan of women's boxing, congratulated Serrano, who would have loved for the fight to be televised on Showtime.

Espinoza told her that he was interested in airing not only her fight but other women's bouts in the future, and he all but promised her that in 2017 he would find a way to get her on the air.

On Friday, Espinoza delivered on his promise when Showtime announced that it would air Serrano's bout on Jan. 14, also at Barclays Center, on Showtime Extreme (7 p.m. ET/PT), where it will televise preliminary fights on the Showtime card headlined by the Badou Jack-James DeGale super middleweight world title unification fight.

Puerto Rico native Serrano (30-1-1, 23 KOs), who lives in Brooklyn, vacated her featherweight belt and moved down in weight and knocked out Alexandra Lazar in the first round on Oct. 18 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to win a vacant women's junior featherweight world title. Serrano, 28, will defend that 122-pound crown against former two-division world titleholder Yazmin Rivas (35-9-1, 10 KOs) in the first women's world title bout scheduled to air on English-language national television in nearly a decade.

"It's been one of our goals to get women's boxing back on Showtime," Espinoza told ESPN. "I'm a little embarrassed we didn't do it sooner. But over the last two to three years it's been proven that once again the market is absolutely ready for women's combat sports. Just look at MMA, and it's not just Ronda Rousey, but other women's fighters, who have built followings."

Espinoza pointed out that female MMA stars such as Rousey, Miesha Tate, Cris "Cyborg" Justino and Gina Carano all got early exposure on Showtime-televised cards. Showtime also is where Christy Martin fought several times in the late 1990s as a trailblazer in women's boxing. Laila Ali also appeared on Showtime in 2000, the last time the network put on a women's boxing match.

"Showtime has had a tradition of supporting women in boxing and MMA," Espinoza said. "Really, there's no excuse for women's boxing not to be regularly on Showtime, and all the success women have had lately in MMA made the omission all that more glaring."

Rivas, 28, of Mexico, has won world titles at junior bantamweight and twice at bantamweight, although she is 1-1-1 in her past three bouts. Serrano has won world titles in four weight classes -- junior featherweight, featherweight, junior lightweight and lightweight.

Lou DiBella, Serrano's promoter and a strong advocate of women's boxing, credited Espinoza for sticking to his word.

"I am totally thrilled this fight is going to be televised," DiBella said. "Stephen has been a man of his word. He said we would get there and eventually there will be an all-women's show on Showtime, but this is a big step. This is a world title fight of quality. This is a real fight. For women's fight fans this is a premier fight. It's a great step for women's boxing.

"That the guy running Showtime Sports is a champion of women's boxing is significant. This is a big step and it's a hell of a fight. I am very excited that Amanda is getting this opportunity. She deserves it. Yazmin Rivas deserves it. These are women who have had multiple world championships in multiple weight classes. This is a significant fight for women's boxing."

Espinoza said the decision to put on Serrano was an easy one because of the network's interest combined with the fact that Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment CEO Brett Yormark, who runs Barclays Center, has made a big commitment to boxing and boxers from the borough.

"Barclays Center and Brett Yormark have been such supporters of boxing, and with his support of [Brooklyn featherweight] Heather Hardy and Amanda Serrano and other Brooklyn fighters, regardless of gender, the conditions were right," Espinoza said. "A network is interested, there's a world champion [Serrano] from Brooklyn and a venue that was interested, so we tried to find the best quality fight we could.

"Amanda is skilled, fan friendly and an entertaining fighter. She is perfect for our reentry into women's boxing."

Espinoza said that although Serrano will appear on the lesser-viewed Showtime Extreme part of the card, there would soon be women's boxing on the network's flagship broadcast "Showtime Championship Boxing."

"Our goal is to make women's boxing a regular thing on 'Showtime Championship Boxing' in the very near future, maybe with Amanda, maybe someone else," he said.

Espinoza said he has talked to Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn about lightweight Katie Taylor, the star Irish amateur who won a 2012 Olympic gold medal, appeared in the 2016 Olympics and turned pro with much fanfare last week. Espinoza said he is also paying attention to super middleweight Claressa Shields, the charismatic two-time U.S. Olympic gold medalist who won her professional debut on Nov. 19 on the Sergey Kovalev-Andre Ward undercard.

"Katie Taylor, we have an eye on her, and Claressa is a really interesting prospect as well," Espinoza said. "There are plenty of options. There is talent out there. We just need to find the slots and dates for them."

There also will be another bout on the Showtime Extreme coverage of the Jan. 14 card, a scheduled 10-round middleweight fight between prospects Ievgen Khytrov (14-0, 12 KOs), 28, a 2012 Olympian from Ukraine now fighting out of New York, and Immanuwel Aleem (16-0-1, 9 KOs), 23, of Richmond, Virginia.

Following the Showtime Extreme bouts, Showtime will pick up coverage beginning at 9:30 p.m. ET with Jose Pedraza defending his junior lightweight world title against Gervonta Davis, followed by the long-awaited Jack-DeGale unification fight in the main event.