The New Year Offers Lots of Hope for the Fight Game

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The hand-written note from Larry Merchant, gone from his commentator’s seat for HBO boxing telecasts but certainly not forgotten, gave this fellow fight fanatic hope that 2016 could be—let’s all cross our fingers and wish very hard—a special year for the sport he and I, and so many others, love despite the fact it hasn’t always loved us back.

“Who would have guessed a few years ago,” Larry asked, somewhat rhetorically, “that we’d have so many fights on TV as we suddenly have?”

And it is true, boxing is finding its way onto more channels than ever these days. Although some of his competitors still decry the spreading influence of Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions, the Wizard of Oz-like power broker behind the green curtain (the color of money, right?) has poured millions of dollars into his quasi-successful attempt to nudge the pugilistic arts back into mainstream status. There were 46 PBC-produced shows that were carried on CBS, NBC, Fox Sports 1, Spike and ESPN in 2015, giving fights and fighters nearly as much exposure as, say, the ubiquitous Kardashian sisters and their rotating casts of husbands and lovers. On any given night, channel-surfers are apt to come across the sight of two guys wearing padded gloves and hooking off the jab.

For true devotees, the glut of programming became destination viewing. For the real target audience, fringe or non-fans that conceivably become enamored of boxing if they accidentally tuned in to a sufficiently exciting matchup, PBC has become the equivalent of a high school chemistry lab test. If you mix a little of this with a little of that, do you get the desired reaction and an A-grade? Or just a small poof of fast-dissipating and smelly smoke?

HBO and Showtime continue to shoulder a significant share of the load, HBO under its new chief decision-maker, Executive Vice President of Sports Peter Nelson. The signals Nelson, a former journalist, has been sending out since succeeding Ken Hershman in November suggest that the course now being charted will gain favor with the pay-cable giant’s subscriber base. ESPN, alas, has cut back from its weekly “Friday Night Fights” telecasts to a monthly PBC show, but the budget for those dates has been boosted and the level of competition presumably raised.

Ah, but that’s always the rub, isn’t it? Quantity without quality doesn’t really cut it. Nor does quality without quantity; good, compelling fights need to be made often enough so that the public doesn’t lose interest while the inevitable mismatches are thrust upon audiences that have so many other options to satisfy their entertainment needs.

So today on Boxing Day (Dec. 26)—yeah, I know it has nothing to do with the throwing of hands—I look forward to what could and should happen during the upcoming year to ensure that whatever momentum that was created in 2015 continues to build like an avalanche.

Boxing, like any sporting enterprise, needs legitimate star attractions to keep those turnstiles turning and Nielsen ratings climbing. Does anyone think interest in a New England Patriots-Denver Broncos game would be the same if the quarterback matchup was Jimmy Garoppolo vs. Brock Osweiler instead of Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning? The game could turn out to be just as exciting with the backups playing, but the come-on of future Hall of Famers going to head-to-head would be missing.

Nobody is ready to suggest that today’s crop of elite fighters is on a par with those who comprised the last golden age of boxing, in the 1980s, when giants such as Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Riddick Bowe, Lennox Lewis and the second coming of George Foreman ruled the landscape as if they were T-Rexes of the ring. Floyd Mayweather Jr., the highest-grossing boxer of all time, is retired (or so he claims), and 37-year-old Manny Pacquiao is eyeing the exit, too. If his most recent performance is any indication, that abysmal, snore-a-thon loss to Tyson Fury, then displaced heavyweight ruler Wladimir Klitschko, at 39, appears to be a goose that’s finally cooked, or close to it.

But every generation produces elite fighters to succeed those who invariably must take their leave. Fight fans always decry the fading away of familiar favorites, but human nature dictates the identification of new objects of our affection. If all goes right, the boxing world could soon be looking at a new crop of marquee attractions to take center stage and hold it for years to come.

The most appealing potential matchups of 2016 appear to be in the middleweight and light heavyweight divisions. Although each has indicated the likelihood of taking an interim bout first, a unification showdown, presumably in the fall, of WBA “super,” IBF and IBO champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) and WBC, The Ring and lineal 160-pound ruler Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) has the potential to be the biggest bout of the upcoming year. Some impatient types are complaining about the principals’ expressed need to “marinate” the matchup, the better to build interest, but I see nothing wrong in each engaging in an interim bout, as long as the delay in putting these heavy hitters together doesn’t stretch well into the future, as was the case with the too-long-delayed Mayweather-Pacquiao megafight that turned out to be anything but. Fortunately for the consumer, GGG’s promoter, Tom Loeffler of K2, and Alvarez’s, Golden Boy president Oscar De La Hoya, are reasonable enough to understand the need to strike when the iron is hot. When you consider that Golovkin turns 34 on April 8, the need for him to put some signature victories on his resume while he still is in his prime becomes even more obvious.

At light heavyweight, the main man is Russia’s Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (28-0-1, 25 KOs), the IBF, WBA “super” and WBO titlist who would seem to have the deepest and most intriguing menu of choices, not only in 2016 but possibly well beyond. First up is the Jan. 30 rematch with former champ Jean Pascal (30-3-1, 17 KOs), a do-over of their entertaining first meeting which the Russian won by eighth-round stoppage on March 14. After that? Possibly a full-unification showdown with WBC champ Adonis “Superman” Adonis (27-1, 22 KOs) or a date with former WBC/WBA super middleweight king Andre Ward (28-0, 15 KOs) who, since his Dec. 17, 2011, conquest of Carl Froch in the final of the Super Six Boxing Classic, has fought only three times because of injury and promotional squabbles. It wouldn’t be a surprise if Kovalev also has Ukraine’s Vyacheslav Shabranskyy (15-0, 12 KOs), who impressed in his 10-round majority decision over Yunieski Gonzalez on Dec. 19, or Andrezj Fonfara (28-3, 16 KOs) on his radar. And don’t discount the possibility of Golovkin moving up a division or two, at least to some acceptable catchweight, to trade bombs with Kovalev.

As for Mayweather (49-0, 26 KOs), few believe that he has fought his last fight. At first glance, it wouldn’t appear that he now needs or ever will need another payday; his net worth is estimated at $400 million. But this is a guy who followed up a $4.8 million purchase of a car with another for a $3.8 million ride, increasing his collection of luxury, supercharged vehicles to 15. As much as “Money,” who turns 39 on Feb. 24, wants to preserve his undefeated record, his enormous ego and profligate spending could entice him into another bout for more filthy lucre and, oh, yeah, the chance for a 50th consecutive win that would put him past the hallowed mark set by the late Rocky Marciano.

But there are obstacles to any Mayweather comeback. For one, he shouldn’t expect the sort of sultan’s ransom to which he is accustomed. His dud of a “superfight” with Pacquiao pretty much assures that, and if it doesn’t, well, there was that waltz around the rose bushes with the very outclassed Andre Berto. A rematch with Pacquiao is possible, but only at deeply discounted prices, which both aging icons likely would find objectionable.

For his part, the 37-year-old Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) is insisting he has only one fight left in him, and the likelihood is that it’ll be against another member of Top Rank founder Bob Arum’s stable, Arum possessed of a promoter’s standard fondness for having both horses in the race. Will it be a rubber match against Timothy Bradley Jr. (33-1-1, 13 KOs), the WBO welterweight champion? Maybe, but it’s not the matchup most fans would want to see. More attractive would be a pairing of Pacquiao, who hasn’t won on a knockout or stoppage since he beat Miguel Cotto on Nov. 14, 2009 (and that came in the 12th round), against WBO super lightweight titlist Terrence Crawford (27-0, 19 KOs), the Boxing Writers Association of America’s 2014 Fighter of the Year. But therein lies a quandary; Arum will want Pacquiao to step away on a winning note, and that is no certainty against a 28-year-old bull like Crawford. It also would not do Crawford, in the full bloom of his prime, much good to have his unblemished record blemished by a retiring legend that has a political career in his native Philippines and is apt to resist any temptation to lace up the gloves again.

Speaking of aging legends, the remarkable Bernard Hopkins (55-7-2, 32 KOs), who turns 51 on Jan. 15, remains resolute in his determination to take a farewell fight in 2016, and against an upper-tier type of opponent. OK, there are those who don’t find B-Hop’s style to be particularly exhilarating. He nonetheless is a freak of nature, still world-class at an age when most fighters are long removed from the scene, or need to be. The ongoing fall from grace of Roy Jones Jr., 47, which now has lasted several years, stands as stark testimony that Hopkins is one of a kind. We shall not see his like again.

I might be in the minority, but the occasional exhibition of technically flawless boxing satisfies a longing in the artistic portion of my soul. Which is why I would be intrigued to see a pairing of maybe the two most accomplished amateurs ever, Cuban expatriate Guillermo Rigondeaux (16-0, 10 KOs) and Ukraine’s Vasyl Lomachenko (5-1, 3 KOs). Both extraordinarily skilled little men are two-time Olympic champions, Rigo having taken gold in 2000 and 2004 and Lomachenko in 2008 and 2012. Rigo was 374-12 as an amateur, Lomachenko a mind-boggling 396-1.

Twenty or so pounds south of Rigondeaux and Lomachenko is another great thing in an even smaller package, the man now widely considered to be the finest pound-for-pound fighter on the planet, WBC flyweight champion Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez (44-0, 38 KOs). The Nicaraguan can box like Mayweather and punch like Golovkin, twin blessings which are likely to make for several more years of dominating performances. Perhaps the most intriguing bout for Chocolatito would be a rematch with Mexico’s Juan Francisco Estrada (33-2, 24), who went 12 competitive rounds before losing a unanimous decision on Nov. 17, 2012.

With the somnambulant effort turned in by Wladimir Klitschko (64-4, 53 KOs) against Tyson Fury (25-0, 18 KOs), the heavyweight division—long locked down by Wlad and his now-retired older brother, Vitali—is like a locked door that suddenly has been flung open to the masses. Perhaps Wlad gets his act together and regains his raft of titles (WBA “super,” WBO, IBO, The Ring, lineal) against Fury (25-0, 18 KOs), but even if he does there is a sense that a major step forward soon will be taken by someone. It could be WBC champ Deontay Wilder (35-0, 34-0), big-bopping Cuban Luis Ortiz (24-0, 21 KOs), Russia’s Alexander Povetkin (30-1, 22 KOs), England’s Anthony Joshua (15-0, 15 KOs) or the U.S.’s Charles Martin (22-0-1, 20 KOs), but the status quo seemingly is no mo’.

Of course, jolts of electricity that serve to charge the sport don’t always come from the most obvious power sources. Great fights, the kind that remind fans of what drew them to boxing in the first place, and the hope of which keeps bringing them back, can pop up at any time, and any place. Hardly anyone in America saw WBA super bantamweight ruler Somsak Sithchatchawal’s 10th-round stoppage of Mahyar Monshipour in France in 2006, but when word of the incredible two-way action got out, the video went viral and soon became a YouTube sensation everywhere. Some of the most indelible memories of 2015 were created by Krzysztof Glowacki’s 11th-round technical knockout of long-reigning WBC cruiserweight champ Marco Huck, Francisco Vargas rallying for a ninth-round TKO of WBC super featherweight titlist Takashi Miura, Nonito Donaire’s blood-and-guts unanimous decision over Cesar Juarez for the vacant WBO super bantamweight belt and Andrezj Fonfara’s frenetic, unanimous decision over Nathan Cleverly.

Every boxing year includes letdowns and pleasant surprises. As always, I am ready for both.

Bernard Fernandez, a five-term president of the Boxing Writers Association of America, received the Nat Fleischer Award from the BWAA in April 1999 for lifetime achievement and was inducted into the Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame in 2005, as well as the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame in 2013. The New Orleans-born sports writer has worked in the industry since 1969 and pens a weekly column on the Sweet Science for Sherdog.com.