The Hottest Boxing Storylines for the Week of December 20

Billy Joe Saunders joined the middleweight mix with a lackluster and disappointing majority-decision win over veteran titlist Andy Lee on Saturday night at the Manchester Arena in England. 

The fight was a complete dud, with the exception of one solid round of action, so we take a look at what Saunders' win proves for him and the division. 

Next, we turn our attention to the HBO card from the Turning Stone Casino in Verona, New York, featuring Luis Ortiz' coming-out party as a major heavyweight player and the shameful way that Nicholas Walters was robbed of a victory by three blind mice.

We finish up by looking at Rances Barthelemy's big title win from Friday night and what comes next for ageless wonder Bernard Hopkins. 

These are the hottest boxing storylines for the week!

What Did Saunders' Win Prove?

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It remains to be seen what Saunders' win over Lee will mean over the long haul for the middleweight division, but for now it nets the Brit a belt and a shot at more significant contests. 

The fight between the two rivals was an anticlimactic affair that served as a good test case for why "none of the above" should be an option when scoring a fight.

Yes, it was that bad.

Short of Saunders' two knockdowns of Lee in Round 3, there really wasn't much of anything worth discussing in this fight. It was tedious, filled with posturing and never really picked up with anything close to the action that was expected when the fight was signed.

There was just a stunning lack of urgency from both fighters.

Saunders fought like the belt was already in his gym bag after scoring the two early knockdowns, allowing Lee to get his legs back and get back into the fight. It's understandable that Saunders didn't want to punch himself out (with stamina being one of his known issues), but he was overly cautious. 

Lee, who seemed stuck in neutral all night, never seemed to find it within himself to press Saunders and score the knockdown(s) that could have leveled or ended the fight. The now-former champion did attack more in the final couple of rounds, but by then it was too little, too late.

Even with that said, you could still argue that Lee won, mostly because nearly every round was so devoid of action that you could have just flipped a coin to pick the winner.

In the end, the pair of knockdowns made up the margin for Saunders (23-0), who remains undefeated and now holds a championship belt in a top-heavy division. 

Welcome to the Heavyweight Mix, Luis Ortiz

Sometimes, someone just says something better than you could, and you just need to give him their due credit.

Cliff Rold of Boxing Scene tweeted this shortly after Ortiz handed Bryant Jennings his second straight defeat in thumping fashion: "Ortiz, Joshua, Parker...watching fluid, athletic, aggressive heavyweights again...it's like waking up from a bad hangover."

Translation: The heavyweight division is back, and it's back in a big way with some exciting talent that could make for marquee matchups in the near future. 

Ortiz joined the two younger men on that list, Anthony Joshua and Joseph Parker, with a destructive knockout of Jennings on Saturday night in upstate New York on HBO's Boxing After Dark. The 36-year-old Cuban lived up to his "King Kong" nickname by felling Jennings with a vicious left uppercut inside.

Jennings somehow rose to his feet from what looked like one hell of a concussive shot, but his body was done. It was only a matter of seconds before the referee correctly jumped in to end the affair and gave the heavyweight division another budding star.

And to think, Ortiz did it all with the flu.

How Badly Was Nicholas Walters Robbed?

Really, really, ridiculously badly.

Judges Don Ackerman, Wynn Kintz and Tom Schreck should be fined, suspended or even barred from ever working another fight in New York or anywhere else for their putrid, incompetent performances on Saturday night.

Walters, a former featherweight titlist who lost his belt on the scales before his last fight, and Jason Sosa engaged in an exciting 10-round scrap in the main support bout for Ortiz-Jennings on HBO. 

The action was intense, but it was The Axe Man who landed the harder, cleaner shots, particularly downstairs, in every single round. It wasn't close at all.

Sosa was competitive. He showed guts and deserves another opportunity.

But there is no way, zero, that he earned a draw (which Ackerman and Kintz gave him) or the win, which was inexplicably scored for him by Schreck, a veteran judge who either had a really bad night, didn't watch the fight or was drunk when filling out his scorecard.

That's hyperbole, but just barely.

Walters landed more punches in every round, according to CompuBox, finishing the night with a 45 percent connect rate (to Sosa's 19 percent) and over 100 more landed punches. The decision was so bad that even CompuBox's official Twitter feed mocked it.

Twice.

Will Rances Barthelemy Be the Top Dog at 130 Pounds?

John Gurzinski/Associated Press

"Kid Blast" Barthelemy overcame a slow start where he routinely fought his foe's fight to come from behind and outpoint Denis Shafikov on Friday night at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas to capture the vacant IBF Lightweight Championship.

The judges scored the fight correctly, for the most part.

Two of the three judges at ringside watched the fight, scoring it 116-112 for the Cuban, while the third, Robert Hoyle, turned in a ludicrous 119-109 tally (which was totally divorced from reality) for the now two-weight champion.

Barthelemy looked to be giving the fight away in the early rounds.

He was content to negate his substantial advantages in height and reach and square up with Shafikov in a fight. That gave the Russian contender all sorts of opportunities to score points with solid shots that would probably never land if he had to navigate his opponent's physical advantages in order to get to the target. 

Barthelemy changed the dynamic in Round 8 with a big left hand that split Shafikov's right eye open and changed the tenor of the fight. The Cuban got back into his fighting comfort zone after the cut and took command down the stretch for a close win.

The 130-pound division is wide-open at the moment.

Barthelemy's size makes him a natural contender to jump up in weight at some time in the future but, before he does, he has the looks of a fighter who could be a major player in this division...so long as he fights big and doesn't give it away like he did early against Shafikov.

Can Bernard Hopkins Win One Last Title?

Tim Larsen/Associated Press

Hopkins, the ageless wonder who is now looking 50 years of age in the rearview mirror, has revealed his potential plans for a final contest before walking away and awaiting the Hall of Fame.

Per Jake Donovan of Boxing Scene, the 51-year-old former undisputed middleweight and light heavyweight champion will reportedly meet WBA super middleweight champion Fedor Chudinov in the first half of 2016.

Hopkins had been targeting Arthur Abraham, a bigger name and holder of the WBO's 168-pound strap, but the WBO has ordered Abraham to face mandatory challenger Gilberto Ramirez next.

That leaves options that may not be sexy for fans but provide the living legend with the opportunity to close out his career by winning another world championship in a third weight class.

Hopkins skipped over super middleweight to win the light heavyweight championship from Antonio Tarver after finally seeing his record run at 160 pounds end at the hands of Jermain Taylor and some controversial judging. 

He campaigned at or around 168 pounds for a couple of years early in his career before settling in at middleweight and eventually dominating the division. 

Hopkins hasn't fought since dropping a brutally one-sided decision to Sergey Kovalev in November 2014.

Chudinov captured his title with a split decision over longtime champion/contender Felix Sturm this past May. The two have been ordered to contest a rematch, but with the two camps struggling to come to terms for that fight, a lucrative Hopkins match could materialize as an alternative.