When Kristian Prenga landed a high-profile opportunity to face Anthony Joshua, it left a major hole atop Rodney Rice’s June 6 show at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
The Albanian heavyweight Prenga had originally been scheduled to compete in a 10-round main event against a step-up opponent, but that fight was replaced by a life-changing opportunity to face the former unified heavyweight champion Joshua in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Rice’s first reaction was panic.
“First thing I thought was, ‘Oops, I’m in trouble,’” Rice, of RDR Promotions, told BoxingScene. “When I came to my senses after about an hour, I thought, ‘This is great for him. He has to do this. This is what you get into boxing for: the big opportunities.”
Prenga, whose sizable Albanian fan base travels with him all over the region, had been counted on to move the most tickets of anyone on the card. Losing him could have derailed the entire event. After the initial shock wore off, Rice reshuffled the card. He elevated Newark welterweight Michael “Slick” Anderson, 25-4-1 (19 KOs), into the eight-round main event against Nimal Farmer, 6-1-2 (4 KOs). The co-feature now pits local flyweight Anthony Johns, 11-1 (6 KOs), against Mexico’s Angel Meza Morales, 11-4-3 (7 KOs) in a 10-round fight.
Rice turned to the local scene to rebuild the card, adding heavyweight Norman Neely, 17-1 (12 KOs), plus the debuting Tayvon Fish of nearby Linden, New Jersey. That’s in addition to a few regional rivalry matchups, including a four-round middleweight fight between Long Island, New York's Famous Wilson, 4-0 (2 KOs), and Jersey City's Bernard Gardner, 1-1 (1 KOs), in a rematch of their amateur meeting at the 2019 National Golden Gloves, which Wilson won.
“I was like, ‘You know how to set up a card, you know how to draw a crowd. Now you got to do it at different levels.’ So me and my awesome team went to work on doing some things,” Rice said.
Rice knows all about boxing surprises. A Philadelphia resident, he began promoting in March 2020, just days before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the sporting world. Rice, who had been training amateurs and managing pros since the 2000s, began promoting his own shows after disagreements with local promoters about his fighters. He learned the promotional game while shadowing another Philadelphia promoter, David Feldman, of Bare Knuckle Fighting Championships. For about five years, Rice learned every aspect of the promotional business, from ticketing and camera operation to show pacing and security coordination.
Rice’s first event, headlined by a boxer he had helped train, Samuel Teah, was an unqualified success. “We blew the 2300 Arena out,” Rice said. “We had to close the door with people still outside in line because we couldn't allow anybody else into the building.”
Now approaching his 40th event, Rice is entering a new market in North Jersey while promoting at his biggest venue yet.
For Anderson, the late promotion to the main event hasn’t altered his approach. A former mailman turned real estate investor, the Newark native Anderson last headlined at Prudential Center in 2024 and has become one of the area’s more reliable ticket sellers.
Farmer, of Philadelphia, is 20 years Anderson’s junior and looking to rebound after suffering his first defeat in November, which was preceded by two draws.
“I always tell myself – even when I was fighting four-rounders – that I’m the main event,” Anderson said. “I tell myself that you have to push yourself to have the best performance because the main event doesn’t always get remembered.
“A lot of times what I get with being an older fighter, they’re gonna fight me harder. They’re gonna say, ‘Let me try to get this older fighter out of here.’ Sometimes I get the best version of the opponents that I’m fighting. I’m with it. I like fighting younger guys because it tests me.”
Anderson, who is trained by Muhammad Abdus Salaam – who also coaches Prenga – says he is happy that his gym mate is getting the opportunity of a lifetime, saying he gave him a hug when he heard the news. Anderson believes he can replace the power and excitement lost with Prenga’s departure.
“If he makes a mistake,” Anderson said of Farmer, “he’s gonna see how hard I hit, and I’m sure he’s never been hit as hard as I’m gonna hit him.”
Ryan Songalia is a reporter and editor for BoxingScene.com and has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler, The Guardian, Vice and The Ring magazine. He holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at ryansongalia@gmail.com or on Twitter at @ryansongalia.
