by Francisco Salazar

DeMarcus Corley and Vivian Harris are fighting each other.

The fight that should have likely taken place 10-15 years ago is happening tonight at the Convention Center in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The welterweight bout is scheduled for 10 rounds with a regional title belt on the line.

Corley (48-28-1, with 28 KOs) had his four-bout winning streak snapped in his last bout on April 7, losing a close unanimous decision to Jovanie Santiago.

The 42-year-old Corley has been fighting as a professional for 21 years. The Washington, D.C. resident won the vacant WBO junior welterweight title in June of 2001, stopping Felix Flores in the opening round. Corley would defend the title twice before losing it to Zab Judah by split decision in July of 2003.

In recent fights, Corley has faced and lost to Viktor Postol, Lucas Matthysse, Ruslan Provodnikov, Selcuk Aydin, and Adrian Estrella.

Like Corley, Harris (32-11-2, with 19 KOs) won a world title belt at 140 pounds, stopping Diosbelys Hurtado in the second round to win the WBA junior welterweight title. Harris would defend the title three times before losing the title to Carlos Maussa by knockout in June of 2005.

From 2010 to 2012, Harris went through a stretch of winless bouts, losing to the likes of Matthysse, Victor Ortiz, Jessie Vargas, and Brian Rose.

Harris has not fought since his knockout loss to Pritchard Colon in September of 2015.

In the main event, Dewayne Beamon (10-0, with 7 KOs), who is also the promoter, will square off in a 12 round junior bantamweight bout against former world title challenger Keyvin Lara (20-2-1, with 6 KOs).

Beamon, who resides in nearby Goldsboro, has wins over former world title challengers William Gonzalez and Christian Esquivel.

Lara was knocked out by Kazuto Ioka in round 11 on July 20.

Lightweight Maynard Allison (7-1, with 5 KOs) faces unbeaten Eric Hernandez (9-0, with 5 KOs) in a 10 round bout.

Francisco A. Salazar has written for Boxingscene.com since September of 2012 and has covered boxing in Southern California and abroad since 2000. Francisco also covers boxing for the Ventura County (Calif.) Star newspaper, RingTV.com, and Knockout Nation. He can be reached by email at santio89@yahoo.com or on Twitter at FSalazarBoxing