Boxing's Top Storylines to Watch in Week of August 12

The summer is beginning to wind down, and while that may not make you happy, it's definitely a good thing for boxing. For the fans it means more fights, more drama and less time to wait for the biggest fight in many years.

But before we get there, we have big action title fights that could go either way coming at you from Atlantic City and across the pond in England. We also tackle the tough, and uncomfortable, question of performance-enhancing drugs in boxing, and discuss Manny Pacquiao's pending return to the ring.

It's an exciting week in the sport, and these are the top storylines you'll need to pay attention to for the week of August 12.

Will Boxing Ever Get Serious About PED's?

With Major League Baseball's Biogenesis suspensions now in the rear view mirror—with the exception of Alex Rodriguez who serves as a daily reminder every time he steps up to the plate—fans must now ask themselves: Will boxing ever get serious about this problem? 

Say what you want about A-Rod, but his use of performance-enhancing drugs isn't endangering any lives but his own. Sure he might swing the bat faster, hit the ball further and pad his stats, but he's not competing in a sport where the object is to hurt your opponent.

That's the objective in boxing. To hit a guy so hard that he goes down and stays down. Extra muscle, power and speed can not only give you a competitive edge, but they can potentially produce life-threatening complications.

Earlier this summer, a report by Yahoo Sports Kevin Iole indicated that former featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa's name had surfaced in the Biogenesis reports. But with nobody capable of making decisions at the national level, there are no suspension's or discipline coming.

Then came reports this week that Timothy Bradley was unhappy with Bob Arum's resolution of the drug testing protocol for his fight with Juan Manuel Marquez.

Bradley claims that in their negotiations he insisted on, and Marquez agreed to, Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA) testing. The VADA protocol is extremely strict, and it doesn't give fighters any advanced notice of upcoming tests.

But now testing will be handled by the notoriously lax Nevada State Athletic Commission. That's a loss for Bradley, and for those who want the sport to get serious. 

This will do nothing to assuage the individuals who have questioned Marquez's enhanced physique in the lead-in to and aftermath of his December fight with Manny Pacquiao. This is not to say that Marquez did, or is doing, anything wrong. 

Regardless of where you fall on that issue, there is no debate that PED's have no place in boxing, and the sport needs to get serious before a preventable tragedy takes place.

Can Nathan Cleverly Stand Up to Sergey Kovalev's Frightening Power?

Don't look now, but we actually have a pretty decent weekend of fight's coming up.

Generally speaking, the summer is downtime for the sport of boxing, but there are several big title fights on tap for this Saturday.

The best of the lot, at least in this humble opinion, will feature Nathan Cleverly defending his WBO light heavyweight title against Russian power puncher extraordinaire Sergey Kovalev. 

Cleverly (26-0, 12 KO) is a skilled boxer who has made most of his impact fighting in his native United Kingdom. But he's never faced a fighter with this level of raw power, and he's going to need to box effectively to win the fight.

Kovalev (21-0-1, 19 KO) burst on the scene earlier this year when he absolutely blew through veteran contender Gabriel Campillo. The third-round stoppage was extremely impressive, and it was made even more so when you consider the Spaniard was robbed of his own share of the 175-pound title in his previous fight.

Bernard Hopkins and Adonis Stevenson both have legitimate claims to light heavyweight supremacy at the present. But the winner of this fight could certainly be in a position to challenge them for the top spot.

Will HBO Finally Score Some Points in Feud with Rival Showtime?

Much has been written in recent weeks about the stunning realignment that rocked the cable boxing world in 2013. For years HBO held the dominant position, and the title of unquestioned leader when it came to televised boxing in the United States.

But with the defection of the sport's pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather—and with him the entire Golden Boy Promotions stable of fighters—to rival Showtime the balance has dramatically shifted.

Showtime is now the dominant brand without question, and they're just a few weeks from putting on one of the biggest sporting events of the year when Mayweather meets Saul "Canelo" Alvarez on Sept. 14 in Las Vegas for the junior middleweight championship.

HBO needs to stop the bleeding, and they'll get a chance to have the spotlight square on them this weekend with a pair of potentially exciting fights. 

We've already covered Clevery vs. Kovalev, but HBO will also feature a middleweight championship fight between IBF champion Daniel Geale and Darren Barker. 

Geale is possibly the most underrated, and definitely the least mentioned, of the middleweight champions and he has the potential to be a star. Barker on the other hand has only lost once in his career, and he gave Sergio Martinez fits in the process.

Nobody is saying these two fights will shift the power balance, but at least they could get HBO back in the game.

Is Manny Pacquiao Still Relevant?

You'd never know it—what with the sporting world's attention focused on PED's and boxing's on Mayweather vs. Alvarez—but Manny Pacquiao and Brandon Rios have embarked on a promotional tour for their November fight.

Crickets?

It seems that nobody is even paying attention to this fight—some of that can be attributed to it being so far off and the sport's attention being focused on Mayweather and Alvarez—but it raises the very real question of whether or not Pacquiao is still a big-name in the sport after consecutive losses. 

His fight with Rios is receiving very little attention, and will be a tough sell in the United States. This is all the more striking given both he and his team are on record as saying a loss could bring about the end of his career.

You'd think more people would be paying attention to that. But with everything else going generally in sports and specifically in boxing it appears to have gotten lost in the shuffle.

Will September 14 Ever Get Here?

Think back to when you were a child. Right around Thanksgiving time you'd begin to get those pangs, the ones that told you Christmas was right around the corner. 

Your anticipation, however, made the time seem to go even slower, and each day up until that magical one seemed to drag on forever. That's exactly what it feels like to be a boxing fan right now.

Floyd Mayweather and Saul "Canelo" Alvarez will meet in the ring just over a month from now, but for boxing fans it might as well feel like a year. 

"The One" pay-per-view card is absolutely loaded from top to bottom with compelling matchups, and has a chance to set all sorts of records. Golden Boy Promotions deserves a ton of credit for putting on this show, which features a co-main event between Danny Garcia and Lucas Matthysse that itself is headline worthy.

The question now for boxing fans is: How are we going to make it another month?