Boxing fans have rarely felt more short-changed. The sense of disappointment that stretched from the MGM Grand Garden Arena around the world after Floyd Mayweather skittered and poked his way to victory over Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas this month was immense – and the repercussions might ripple for a while yet. We waited six years for that?
Certainly there is little interest in a rematch, even when the Filipino’s right shoulder heals over the next 12 months or so. Both will be a year closer to 40 and retirement and the suspicion of cashing in will drown out even Bob Arum’s best shot at chutzpah. They are all wounded – and richer – beasts, one way and another.
Fight of the Century? It wasn’t even the Fight of the Night, that honour going to Vasyl Lomachenko’s virtuoso performance in stopping Gamalier Rodriguez in nine rounds. The Ukrainian featherweight, who dazzled his opponent to the point of embarrassment and resignation, fairly lays claim to Mayweather’s crown as the best pure boxer on the planet. What a shame they are not closer in weight.
So, to erase the ennui emanating from the main event, what fights do we want and what are the chances of getting them?
So what do we want?
Top of my personal list is a catchweight superfight between Mayweather and the Kazak wizard Gennady Golovkin, Lomachenko’s middleweight equivalent. If any fighter can drag a proper fight out of Floyd – the A game we have yet to see – it is the artful, hurtful Golovkin, who has so completely destroyed his 32 opponents, 29 of them failing to finish, that he carries the invaluable aura of invincibility known only by a few, Mayweather included.
Golovkin, who fights Willie Monroe Jr (the great nephew of the eponymous “Worm”, who beat Marvin Hagler) in California on Saturday, is willing – very willing – to meet Mayweather at light-middle. It won’t happen.
After that? From a British perspective, Mayweather bouts against either Amir Khan or Kell Brook would sell big. The odds are long on Khan getting the gig, longer on Brook – although Kell has the Eddie Hearn connection (more of which later). The alternative to either is staring everyone in the face: Khan-Brook. My guess is it will happen next year after both have explored other options.
Who wouldn’t want to watch the KO king Deontay Wilder and long-time heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko go at it? There is a decent chance of this one coming off – if Tyson Fury, Klitschko’s mandatory challenger, doesn’t upset the entire world order of the division, and who’s to say he can’t do it?
Klitschko did not look at his best in beating the novice latecomer Bryant Jennings in New York two weeks ago.
Domestically the bout the fighters, the public, the rival TV stations and even their stubborn promoters want is Carl Frampton against Scott Quigg. If someone could lock Barry McGuigan and Hearn in a room until they reached an agreement or ran out of food, we might see it later in the year, or in 2016.
Right now, it is the British Mayweather-Pacquiao stalemate – and neither of them is likely to be around in six years.
Again, for a British audience, there is genuine hunger for a rematch between Billy Joe Saunders and Chris Eubank Jr. They gave us a tense, raw struggle the first time and there are good judges who reckon the result might go Eubank’s way next time. Negotiations, however, will always be tough when Eubank’s dad is involved. Still, it has to happen.
At some point, Anthony Joshua will put himself in the frame for a shot at the world title, be it held by Klitschko, Wilder (or, who knows, Fury).
Meanwhile, a punching shootout with David Price appeals as a contest where the final bell will be redundant. Doable.
The standout champions of the light-heavyweight division, Adonis Stevenson and Sergey Kovalev, would provide one of the loudest collisions in boxing.
Kovalev, so dominant against Bernard Hopkins, will waste more time in July on Nadjib Mohammedi, while Superman waits in his phone box.
Lee Selby is already moving at elite level and if he keeps winning there are great matches to be made in a division where Nicholas Walters has aroused a lot of interest since winning the WBA’s “super” version of the featherweight title. If the Welshman beats Evgeny Gradovich at the O2 Arena on 30 May, he will have the IBF belt to use as bait for the Jamaican. And nine stone is where the WBO champ Lomachenko roams, of course.
Amir Khan ticks over against Chris Algieri on 29 May and waits still for a call from Floyd; but a return with Danny García, who ripped his 140lb belts from him in 2012, would be just as exciting at 147lb – especially as the Philadelphian looked vulnerable beating Lamont Peterson last month. One day, also, Khan might gain revenge against Peterson.
Saúl Álvarez apparently was awesome destroying James Kirkland in three rounds at the weekend; a Latino battle with Miguel Cotto would not have a pretty ending. And from there, we are drawn inevitably back to Golovkin.
One of the most exciting fighters in the business does not appear above: David Haye. And he has only himself to blame. The interest in the inactive former world heavyweight champion has waned. If he is playing the long game, it is a very long one. And not that clever. Talk about missing the boat.
Moneybox
A question left in Money Mayweather’s inbox, meanwhile, on behalf of all boxing fans – does he consider he has a greater genius for boxing, or for making money? – will probably remain unanswered, although his latest performance confirms the suspicions of nearly everyone worth listening to that the latter is true.
His victory over Pacquiao was as calculated as his business deals. “I always find a way” Floyd did what he had to do in unifying the WBA, WBC and WBO welterweight titles. Then, as the star client of Al Haymon, the Scarlet Pimpernel of boxing who has about as much regard for the governing bodies as most fans, the new champion duly announced his intention to throw the belts in the trash can.
Mayweather, as ever, boxed by numbers: in and out, roll the shoulder, crack the right counter on to Manny’s chin, the long left lead to the body to put him out of his rhythm, shift and away. Simple. What clearly concerned Mayweather more than the titles or pleasing the bloodlust of the wealthiest crowd seen at a boxing match were his unbeaten record and the bucks.
Check the numbers that matter to Floyd. He has career earnings of $410m over nearly 19 years, with $180m of it arriving from one night’s work. Of the 10 highest-grossing fights of all time, Mayweather has been in four of them: against Álvarez, Oscar De La Hoya, Cotto and Pacquiao, the grand daddy of them all. It might never be matched.
Mayweather has also generated five of the greatest top 10 pay-per-view numbers – and the latest hit might even go as five million, another record beyond the reach of anyone currently at work in the business.
Hearn happy for Haymon
Eddie Hearn can hardly believe his luck. Having struck up an informal working relationship with Al Haymon, he discovers that the new Don (King) of boxing has a war chest of $200m to spend on challenging the sport’s established elite.
On Saturday, Hearn sent his Matchroom fighters Ricky Burns and Jamie McDonnell to the State Farm Arena in Hidalgo, Texas, to share in some of that largesse and perform on a show bearing Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions imprint – although officially promoted by the Floridian Leon Margules - and shown on national network television there, and Sky Sports here.
There will be more such transatlantic expeditions as this interesting partnership unfolds. Hearn last year flagged his intention to expand his operation in the US and this would appear to be only the beginning.
It would be interesting to know, meanwhile, what the well-travelled WBA supervisor Carlos Chávez thought when McDonnell, his organisation’s bantamweight champion, was announced as the points winner of his 12-rounder against the unbeaten Tomoki Kameda.
“And still bantamweight champion … ” said the announcer, ignoring the WBA altogether. And so it has been on all PBC shows since Haymon struck deals this year with NBC and CBS, as well as smaller outlets, to show his fights, deracinated of the old interim, silver, super and best-in-my-street titles – not to mention the sanction fees – and taking the business in a completely new direction.
Haymon is steadily marginalising the world governing bodies – and nobody is losing sleep over that. Where he takes the sport from here is less clear but Hearn looks as if he is going along for the ride.
Part of Haymon’s multi-year deal with NBC is for six Saturday shows a year starting at 5pm ET, 10pm BST. Now that’s handy synchronicity for Sky Sports: quality US boxing at a reasonable hour.
McDonnell, incidentally, boxed with his trademark grit, coming back from a third-round knockdown to take a close points decision over a dangerous opponent. Burns also turned in a wholehearted performance, finishing with energy and spirit but not doing quite enough over the distance to spoil the unbeaten record of former world champion Omar Figueroa.
The Scot is as obdurate as Nicola Sturgeon. This was his second loss in three fights since losing his WBO lightweight title to the estimable Terence Crawford in March last year but he looks rejuvenated at last, certainly sharper than in his marking-time points win over Alexandre Lepelley in Leeds last November. He has been through hell in the ring and, recently, the courts, where litigation has put a serious hole in his finances. But he never stops smiling – or punching. There could not be a more stark contrast with Money Mayweather.
