There was a time, not so long ago, I really thought boxing had come to a very good place. Heavyweight boxing, anyway. After such long domination by Klitschko(s), who were not interested in fighting outside of Europe, the division was opening up, and the belts were nicely spread out, geographically speaking. Deontay Wilder from the US, Anthony Joshua in the UK, and Joseph Parker in New Zealand. Beyond that, the various champions were very much interested in uniting the belts, which is always a very exciting time for everybody involved in the sport. After everyone got a few initial, easy defenses out of the way and got a chance to be comfortable as a world champ, Joshua vs. Parker happened with really minimal fuss. I won't say the fight itself was necessarily a dud, but it was fought at a much slower pace than I expected with neither fighter ever in serious trouble of being knocked down, let alone knocked out. Still, it was a very much an unquestioned win for Joshua, which left us with the two men pictured here. Joushua (left) holding all the belts except Wilder's (right) WBA title. And Joshua was definitely looking much less formidable after that fight. Everything, it seemed, was set for a final unification bout in the near future. And then the negotiation part of boxing happened, and it is still happening. The two men can't seem to agree on much of anything about what should happen with these fights. A deal looked to be done for a huge fight somewhere in the UK before falling apart at seemingly the last minute. Instead, both men took lesser fights. Not laughers, but definitely not the fights anybody was looking for. Joshua would knock out Alexander Povetkin in 7 after coming out a bit shaky. Wilder, in this case, had the more interesting challenge in Tyson Fury. Fury spent most of the fight touching Wilder at will, though not particularly hurting him. Wilder, though, couldn't seem to land anything at all on Fury. Finally, though, towards the end of the fight, Wilder connected, and sent Fury to the canvas twice. The knockdown in the 12th round was particularly vicious. I really don't think anybody expected Fury to get up from that one. Wilder most certainly didn't. I personally thought the knockdowns were enough to give Wilder the outright victory, but many others felt like Fury had done enough in the fight as a whole to win. In the end, it was declared a draw, which in this one particular instance, was probably the right decision. Not the most satisfying one, maybe, but the right one. So here we are again. Joshua-Wilder is the heavyweight fight we all want to see, but they still can't get it work. Instead, Wilder is going to beat on Dominic Breazeale in May. I don't know Mr. Breazeale as a person, but he seems to be about the most shit one-loss boxer you'll ever see. I've seen him fight several times on PBC shows, and he has looked utterly unconvincing in every single one. He's either gotten a questionable decision, or gotten bailed out on one punch. Joshua made quick work of him, I suspect Wilder will as well. And we'll just be stuck waiting again. Not all is lost, though. There is another division that is once again stepping up to be a surprising bright spot for boxing. After being the Mayweather show for years, the welterweight division is absolutely loaded, and it's got four different formidable champions, and all champions that seem more keen to actually fight each other. In fact, as pictured, two of the champions have actually fought before, during what was almost a little tournament to claim one of Mayweather's vacated belts. Keith Thurman was given a decision over Shawn Porter, which led to Thurman eventually winning that belt. I thought Porter was robbed, but so be it. It was a hugely entertaining fight, and I think it would be a huge win for the two of them to get together again now that each has a belt. Erroll Spence Jr. just fought in a well-recieved pay-per-view and might have positioned himself as the top-dog of the division, supplanting fellow undefeated champion Terrence Crawford. Guess what? With the belts all spread out, there's a very good chance we'll get the definitive answer to that question. Manny Pacquiao is still hanging around as a possible opponent for all four of these guys, and that's fine. There's probably going to have to be some filler as negotiations take place, because boxing is still boxing. But he's clearly the last generation. Seeing these four guys work out unifying these titles in the ring is going to be just super entertaining. I can't imagine any of these pairings producing a dud. As far as I'm aware (and some quick Googling), Crawford is the only one with a solid next fight lined up. He'll be taking on Amir Khan on Saturday night. Khan is the connsumate professional and I expect him to put on a good fight, but I can't really imagine him threatening Crawford too much. It's $70 if you've got not much else going on Saturday night.
My fear in this whole mess is that Crawford is a Top Rank guy, whereas the other three are all PBC guys.* My fear is the IBF, WBA, and WBC belts all get unified in a pretty tidy fashion, but nobody can get the cross promotion right to bring the WBO belt to a fight at all. I don't think these two promotions have worked much together and are fighting over much the same viewership. My guess is whoever comes out as the unified PBC champ will then have to face Crawford, while he get to sit pretty and take on jobbers in the meantime, waiting for a a real champ to finally turn towards him. It's a bit of a shame, but that seems to be the most obvious business path to this unification. *In case anybody was curious, Deontay Wilder is also a PBC guy. Amir Khan and Anthony Joshua are both Matchroom boxers, which makes some sense seeing as they're both British. That said, there's an extra layer of frustration, as Khan has been on at least one PBC card before, so clearly these are promoters who have worked together in the past. We hear bits and pieces of what is supposedly holding up the fight, but of course, no one else is in the room where it happens. All of this is to say boxing has some really exciting stuff on the horizon if it can just get out of its own way. This has long been a problem in boxing with all these sorts of warring promotions, just as it was in the earlier days of professional wrestling, before the monopolization of the WWE.* I suspect that's always been a thing, but it doesn't seem like it was such a big hurdle even in the days of Mike Tyson, let alone the heyday of Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, and George Foreman. *I like to think that boxing matches are less scripted than wrestling matches, but there are always rumors, you know? Believe it or not, though, I'm hopeful. I am hopeful that some of these cross-promotions will happen sooner rather than later, and they will do some eye-popping numbers. It would be nice if we can get some of these fights while everyone is in their prime, instead of waiting at least five years too late for Mayweather-Pacquiao or even GGG-Canelo. (Mayweather-McGregor was its own thing, which definitely penetrated pop culture. I went to a theater to watch it. But it was never a "legit" fight like all the other examples in this post.) With the right exposure, I really feel like boxing has the talent and the personalities right now to make a big splash again, and it would be a damn shame to let squabbles over money make everybody miss the chance to cash in. Comments are closed.
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