It didn’t impress Euri Cedeno. In fact, the undefeated Dominican contender told The Ring that if Tucker performs similarly against him Saturday night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn it’ll lead to the first knockout defeat for Tucker.

“I did see that fight,” Cedeno said before he predicted a knockout at a press conference Thursday. “When I fight someone, I only see two fights, the last one and penultimate one, because mistakes are very hard to get rid of in that short amount of time. So, I looked at that fight [with Simpson] and I saw the mistakes. And if he makes those same mistakes, he won’t see the final bell. … Ever since I learned about the fight, I’ve been training to knock him out and end the fight early.”

Cedeno (14-0-1, 12 KOs), like Baltimore’s Simpson, is a southpaw. He has knocked out 80 percent of his pro opponents, more than Simpson (53 percent), and considers himself a step up in competition for the Brooklyn-bred Tucker (16-1-1, 7 KOs).

The 12-round, 160-pound elimination bout between Tucker and Cedeno will start the main portion of the Xander Zayas-Jaron Ennis undercard at 8 p.m. ET (1 a.m. BST). DraftKings lists Tucker as a slight favorite (-160), yet Cedeno senses that his 23-year-old opponent is overconfident.

“I’ve heard my opponent’s been talking a lot,” Cedeno said. “I wanna tell him to make sure he’s training, because I haven’t been out here talking. And it’s gonna end bad for you if [you haven’t trained]. I haven’t been talking. I’ve been focused. And I want [him] to know that it’s not an easy fight for him.”

The winner will find it easier to land a title shot in a middleweight division that is increasingly wide open.

Cedeno and Tucker are set to fight for three regional belts that will enable one of them to move up in the IBF, WBC and WBO rankings. The IBF ranks Tucker ninth and Cedeno 10th, the WBO lists Cedeno seventh and Tucker at No. 13 and neither fighter is in the WBC’s top 15.

The 26-year-old Cedeno, who resides and trains in Reading, Pennsylvania, is inspired to follow the championship path paved by two Dominicans he admires – Carlos Adames, who owns the WBC middleweight title, and two-time 140-pound champ Alberto Puello. A win over Tucker would move Cedeno, who represented the Dominican Republic at the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, closer to the championship chance he sought when he moved to the United States three years ago.

“It would be something big because I don’t come from a millionaire family,” Cedeno said before referencing his hometown of La Romana. “I come from zero. I come from the barrio. I come from a place where you wake up and you don’t know where you’re gonna find your next meal. So, it would be a very huge achievement for me.”

Zayas (23-0, 13 KOs), the WBA and WBO 154-pound champ, and Ennis (35-0, 31 KOs, 1 NC) will headline a card DAZN will stream to subscribers of its Ultimate plan for no additional charge ($49.99 monthly in the United States; £24.99 in the United Kingdom). The show is also available via DAZN Pay-Per-View to non-subscribers ($74.99 in the U.S.; £24.99 in the UK).