- Amari Jones, 16-0 with 14 KOs, headlines the SAP Center on May 22 against former IBF middleweight champion Vincenzo Gualtieri. Oakland's loudest knockout artist gets a homecoming and a proper name on the other side.
- Right then. On Friday May 22, Golden Boy roll up to the SAP Center in San Jose for their first-ever full DAZN card in the Bay Area, and the headline is Amari 'The Reaper' Jones against former IBF middleweight champion Vincenzo Gualtieri. Tw…
- If you know, you know — this is the type of step-up fight that announces a real contender to the middleweight title picture. Win this in style and Jones is one fight away from being in the conversation with Janibek, the Lara mess, and whate…
Right Then — Oakland Gets Its Reaper Back
Right then. On Friday May 22, Golden Boy roll up to the SAP Center in San Jose for their first-ever full DAZN card in the Bay Area, and the headline is Amari 'The Reaper' Jones against former IBF middleweight champion Vincenzo Gualtieri. Twelve rounds at 160 pounds. Hometown card for Jones — Oakland boy, 23 years old, 16-0 with 14 knockouts, and ranked No. 4 by the IBF and No. 15 by the WBC. This is the homecoming Oscar De La Hoya has been telling everyone was coming.
Let's not beat around the bush. Amari Jones is one of the more legitimate prospects nobody outside the US fight-fan crowd has fully clocked yet. The frame is proper, the right hand is genuine, and February's fourth-round stoppage of Luis Arias in Las Vegas was the night the rest of 160 had to start paying attention. Arias has shared rings with serious people — Daniel Jacobs, Gabe Rosado, David Benavidez early on, Sergiy Derevyanchenko — and Jones walked through him in less than four rounds.
Gualtieri Is The Real Test
Vincenzo 'Il Capo' Gualtieri is 33 years old, 25-1-1 with 8 knockouts, and he is the right level for Jones right now. Class veteran. He won the IBF middleweight title in July 2023 with a decision over Esquiva Falcao, then lost it three months later in his next fight, a unification with Janibek Alimkhanuly. Since the Janibek night, he has reeled off four straight wins back in Germany. He is not a knockout puncher. He is a clean, technical, German-trained operator who will make Jones work for everything he gets.
Make no mistake — this is exactly the fight Golden Boy should be making. You do not want a 16-0 prospect doing 12 rounds with a banger who can hurt him. You want a 16-0 prospect doing 12 rounds with a man who has been in those rounds and survived them. Gualtieri ticks every one of those boxes. He has been the title-holder. He has been across from Janibek. He knows what world level looks like. He will not blink in front of an Oakland crowd.
Why The Venue Matters
The SAP Center pick is a smart bit of card-building. Jones is a Bay Area boy. The DAZN-only US dates have struggled to fill the bigger California rooms in recent years because they have not had a hometown headliner that the casual ticket-buyer recognises. Jones is changing that. Word out of the De La Hoya camp is that the ticket sales for the lower bowl are already strong. Premium tickets land at $150, and the price scale runs down to $30 — that is a Golden Boy choice designed to fill the room. They want this card to look full on television, and it will.
Style Read
Stylistically, this is a classic young-puncher-versus-old-pro chess match. Jones is the bigger physical presence and far more explosive, particularly off the front foot. Gualtieri's best work is on the counter, behind the jab, using angles to take away the straight right hand. If Jones lets the fight settle into a 1-2-step pattern, Gualtieri can frustrate him for six or seven rounds before tiring.
The Jones blueprint is to make the German fight off the back foot from the opening bell. Body work. Lead hook. Get the rhythm of the right hand established early so that by round four, Gualtieri is having to think about that shot before he commits to anything. If the right hand lands clean in the middle rounds, the fight does not go past eight.
Luke's Prediction
Jones by stoppage, round eight. Gualtieri is too proud to fold and too experienced to get bullied out of his shape early. Expect a measured first three rounds where the German has some success behind the jab and Jones is reading the speed and the angles. Around round five or six, the body work begins to add up. By round eight, Gualtieri's hands drop, Jones drops the right hand on the temple, and the referee waves it off.
If you know, you know — this is the type of step-up fight that announces a real contender to the middleweight title picture. Win this in style and Jones is one fight away from being in the conversation with Janibek, the Lara mess, and whatever pieces eventually fall out of the 154 logjam moving north. Class prospect. Proper test. Brilliant night on at the SAP Center.