The Hottest Boxing Storylines for the Week of May 10

Canelo Alvarez took only three rounds to give the fans what Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao failed to provide in their huge showdown last week, and the Mexican sensation now has a clear path toward a couple of highly significant and exciting fights in the middleweight division.

Does this make Canelo the logical successor to the Mayweather-Pacquiao throne?

Speaking of MayPac, can we finally put this stuff to rest?

The fight was a dud, and we're already tired of hearing about injuries and insulting-to-the-fans rematches.

Can we just focus on boxing again?

We also ponder the return of Gennady Golovkin, Roman Gonzalez's long-awaited debut on HBO and the terrible officiating down in Texas on Saturday's Premier Boxing Champions card.

These are the hottest boxing storylines for the week of May 10.

Has the Torch Passed to Canelo Alvarez?

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Canelo didn't just beat Kirkland in his return to HBO.

He annihilated him and left him in an unconscious heap on the ground after one of the cleanest right hands you'll ever see land in the sport of boxing.

It was scary stuff, and Canelo, in a class move, made sure to check on his fallen foe right after the referee had signaled the end before celebrating. Even he was concerned about the result of his handiwork.

Canelo looked as good as, if not better than, we've ever seen him against Kirkland, a dangerous and violent fighter when he's on his game. Alvarez walked through his opponent's big power shots to land his own with devastating effect.

Kirkland began the opening round coming forward and attacking, but it was Canelo's precision punching that turned the tide and put Kirkland on his back with nearly a minute left in the frame. The onslaught continued early in the second, prompting referee Jon Schorle to look close at stopping the fight.

Canelo ripped shots to the body, a fine Mexican fighting tradition if ever there was one, before taking the attack upstairs and emphatically thumping his man.

According to CompuBox tracking, the cinnamon-haired former champion landed more shots in three rounds than Pacquiao managed in 12 the previous week.

Which leads to the inevitable question: Is Canelo boxing's new standard bearer?

Mayweather says he has one fight left, while Pacquiao could be out for a year while recovering from shoulder surgery. Canelo has a cup that runneth over with potentially compelling opponents. 

Dan Rafael of ESPN reports that Canelo and middleweight champion Miguel Cotto have already signed a term sheet for a fall HBO pay-per-view bout with the middleweight championship on the line, so long as Cotto takes care of business against Daniel Geale in June.

And then there's GGG, who Canelo said post-fight in the ring that he'd be interested in facing in the future.

Both of those are huge fights and among the biggest that can be made in boxing.

So Canelo will certainly get every opportunity, and he'll do it by taking on the best. 

You have to admire that throwback spirit. 

Can We Put Mayweather vs. Pacquiao Behind Us?

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Let's put the "Fight of the Century" to rest, especially since it played out as the dud of the century.

At least in the ring.

Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports reports that the pay-per-view numbers could be closer to six million than five million when all is said and done, shattering the previous record and setting a nearly impossible bar for the next guys up.

That means a lot of people made a lot of money.

The fans, however, got treated to a typical Mayweather performance—I'm not criticizing him for what works but just pointing it out—devoid of many risks against a man we later found out to be the proverbial one-legged—armed in this case—man in an a--kicking contest. 

All this talk of injuries and possible rematches that were on again, off again—where have we seen this before?—is insulting to the fans who shelled out $100 on PPV and thousands of dollars in person to see a compromised fight.

Now, that's not Floyd's fault. 

You can criticize Mayweather for plenty of things, but this fight isn't one of them. That's simply not fair. He did his work and won beyond a shadow of a doubt.

It's 100 percent Manny's fault, and every hit both he and his team take for their nondisclosure of a torn shoulder that compromised the fight and fighter is deserved. 

In a lot of ways this turned out to be boxing's worst-case scenario—a nightmare that seemed like a dream when the superfight was finally signed back in February.

But let's not allow the quality fights on the horizon over the next month or so to get swallowed up by this mess.

Let's move on and get back to talking about boxing.

The circus has left town, and hopefully it won't return.

Does Monroe Pose Any Threat to Golovkin?

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To quote HBO's Max Kellerman: nope.

Monroe is a slick southpaw boxer who made his name by winning ESPN's Boxcino middleweight tournament last year and following that up with a victory over fringe contender Brian Vera. 

He carries a record of 19-1 with six knockouts—the lone loss came via spilt decision to veteran spoiler Darnell Boone, who also knocked out Adonis Stevenson—and landed the fight because bigger names seemed something short of interested.

But he's not on this level.

Golovkin is a wrecking ball with scary patience, power and precision. 

GGG has knocked out his last 19 opponents, including a three-knockdown shredding of Martin Murray in February, on his way to designation from most boxing scribes and observers as the best 160-pound fighter on the planet. 

Cotto remains the lineal middleweight champion by virtue of his knockout of Sergio Martinez last June, but he's expressed something we could call reluctance about facing the Kazakh destroyer and will instead defend against Geale—whom Golovkin knocked out in three rounds last July—in June at the Barclays Center.

The question here for Golovkin shouldn't be whether or not he can beat Monroe, but whether or not he can finally secure an elusive high-profile fight next.

With Canelo's big win likely positioning him for a fall showdown with Cotto, it could be next year before that happens.

Will Boxing Fans Catch Chocolatito-Mania?

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We can hope.

Gonzalez is ranked in the top five of most pound-for-pound lists compiled by fans and writers "in the know" about Chocolatito and his impressive run in the lower weight divisions over the past several years.

American fight fans don't generally pay much attention to the guys down here—who are figuratively larger in Japan and Mexico—but Gonzalez, an undefeated three-division champion with 36 knockouts, has a chance to change that in a big way.

The 36 knockouts are especially impressive, given that smaller fighters don't always carry that type of punching power or stopping ability.

Gonzalez is from the same city—Managua, Nicaragua—that produced legendary wild man Ricardo Mayorga, but he fights with a controlled, devastating precision. There's method to his madness, and that shines through in how he approaches each and every round. 

Wanna do a little homework before the big night?

Check out Gonzalez's epic title-winning war against Juan Francisco Estrada in 2012. You won't be disappointed, and you will understand why fans have been calling for a rematch ever since. 

It was just that good.

Chocolito's HBO debut is—or should be—the most anticipated moment of an upcoming boxing weekend that will be headlined by GGG's likely destruction of Monroe Jr.

His foe will be Edgar Sosa, a former light flyweight champion and solid puncher, but the spotlight will be firmly on the current WBC 112-pound champion.

It's his chance to finally get the mass appeal that has thus far eluded him.

Buckle up and enjoy the ride.

Did the Judges Get It Right on Saturday's PBC Card?

Esther Lin

How bad was the officiating during Omar Figueroa Jr.'s controversial unanimous-decision win over Ricky Burns on Premier Boxing Champions on Saturday afternoon?

It was pretty awful.

Laurence Cole, an absolutely shameless referee who is known for frequently making questionable and downright wrong calls to influence the outcome of fights, was at it again in this main event.

Cole, of course, was also the referee on the night that Orlando Salido landed about a billion low blows, slight hyperbole, of course, against Vasyl Lomachenko without so much as a "stop it" from the referee.

He grabbed Burns' arm in Round 3, without the the fighters in a clinch and still fighting, to warn him for holding and deducted a point in Round 8 for the same foul. 

That was spurious at best, and not because Burns wasn't holding, but because both guys were guilty and Figueroa never got warned once for the infraction. 

Burns lost a second point in Round 11 and then was the victim of some terrible scorecards (116-110, 116-110, 117-109). Saying that Burns only won three rounds, as judge Nelson Vazquez did, simply doesn't reflect the action in the ring which featured many close and competitive rounds.

You wanna say that Figueroa won? 

That's fine. 

It was close, and that's certainly a justifiable viewpoint, but Cole's performance and those scorecards were ludicrously bad. And it's not like this is the first time we've seen that particular problem in Texas with a "house" fighter getting all sorts of benefits of the doubt.

We did, however, learn that Figueroa isn't ready for the better fighters in the loaded 140-pound division. By contrast, we also learned that Burns—left for dead after back-to-back losses—still has a bit left in the tank.

You can follow Kevin McRae on Twitter @McRaeBoxing.