The Hottest Boxing Storylines for the Week of January 10
It's fight week, and on Saturday night, Brooklyn, New York, will see a pair of heavyweight title fights for the first time in more than 100 years.
We'll take a look at what we can expect from Deontay Wilder's third defense of his heavyweight crown against Polish brawler Artur Szpilka.
The conversation next shifts to whether or not unified middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin would be willing to call the bluff of the WBO's new middleweight standard bearer and head across the pond for a unification showdown.
Then we take a look at Terence Crawford's next fight, question why Leo Santa Cruz is taking a step backward after the biggest win of his career and look at a secondary title fight between Vyacheslav Glazkov and Charles Martin.
These are the hottest boxing storylines for the week!
What Should We Expect from Wilder-Spzilka?
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Probably not a whole lot, honestly.
Wilder has the power and personality (not to mention a title) to be a huge American boxing star, but he's been stuck in neutral for the last year since taking the WBC Heavyweight Championship from Bermane Stiverne.
Both of his title defenses have come against woefully overmatched and virtually unknown opposition, and his next fight, Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, figures to be more of the same.
Szpilka isn't a bad fighter; he's just middle of the road and unlikely to present much difficulty for the much larger and more powerful Alabama native.
The Pole (who will likely have some significant crowd support in the arena) has three wins over nondescript foes since taking the first loss of his career, a beating against Bryant Jennings early in 2014.
Wilder has been often criticized for avoiding tough challenges, particularly since he won his belt.
He doesn't seem in any great rush to match up with Alexander Povetkin, a former champion who has been the No. 1 contender for as long as Wilder has held the belt, and he seems to have a preference for the winner of Tyson Fury's heavyweight title rematch with Wladimir Klitschko.
Can't blame him there.
Daniel Sandford of the Daily Mail reports that Wilder is targeting that fight next and that he'd be willing to travel to London for a unification clash with the brash Brit if that's what it takes to make it happen.
That's the type of fight that would satiate the demands of many boxing fans, which, unfortunately, can't be said for what we're likely to see Saturday night.
Would GGG Go Across the Pond for a Saunders Tilt?
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Bluff called?
Newly minted WBO middleweight champion Saunders, who received a "significant offer" for a unification clash with GGG, per Dan Rafael of ESPN.com, might have a tough decision coming up.
Per Nick Parkinson of ESPN.com, Saunders responded last week by demanding that he receive a higher purse than David Lemieux, Golovkin's most recent opponent on pay-per-view last October, or that the fight be moved to the United Kingdom.
Neither seemed likely, but maybe we were jumping the gun.
Steve Kim of Boxing Scene reports that Golovkin fighting Saunders in the U.K. isn't all that far-fetched. The Kazakh's promoter Tom Loeffler stated that it would depend "on how the deal could be structured" and that his fighter wants to bring back the definition of a "true world champion" without caring where he fights.
That's certainly an interesting development, given that it seemed (at least to these eyes) that Saunders' play was to make some noise about being interested in a Golovkin fight and then make demands he could be relatively sure GGG's camp wouldn't accept.
Golovkin's possible willingness to make a fight in the U.K. would put the new titlist on the spot and give him a pair of potentially unattractive options: Take the fight as an overwhelming underdog and likely get smashed or explain why he didn't once demands have been made and met.
Of course, all of this is and remains speculation, but the story did just get a lot more interesting.
Should Terence Crawford Be Concerned?
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Crawford is a huge talent who combines speed, power and the mysterious "it" factor that seems to have him on the bullet train to boxing superstardom. But he has a potential problem.
The two-division champion from the nation's heartland in Omaha, Nebraska, just doesn't have many attractive names for him to fight right now.
Rafael reports that Crawford, the current WBO junior welterweight champion, will face "Hammerin" Hank Lundy in the main event of an HBO-televised card February 27 at the Theater at Madison Square Garden.
There's some good and bad to that.
Lundy is a tough dude. He has five losses, but there are some pretty good names on his resume, and a few of those losses were close and could have swung the other way. He'll force Crawford to engage, which should make for an exciting fight, as will the locale.
Crawford has been a big draw in Omaha (with three of his last four fights there), but it's time for him to branch out to bigger markets to build his star power. There's nothing wrong with being a big attraction at home and expanding to new markets, but the business realities of the sport are what they are.
Lundy was the fifth man on the list of Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, who says he was turned down by Viktor Postol, Ruslan Provodnikov, Mauricio Herrera and Lucas Matthysse. Most felt they couldn't be ready in time for a late February date, but Postol seemed to be cool to the idea of facing Crawford at all, according to Rafael.
That's a long and impressive list of guys to turn down a fight.
Hopefully, assuming he gets by the rugged Lundy, Crawford can land one of those fish next time out.
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Why Is Leo Santa Cruz Stepping Back?
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After feasting on a steady diet of no-hopers, never-was fighters and the proverbial cab drivers, Santa Cruz finally took a long-awaited clash against Abner Mares and defeated the former champion in a compelling fight last August.
That makes his next opponent completely unacceptable.
Al Haymon, who manages Santa Cruz, also controls a ton of talented fighters in and around his weight class, including Mares, WBC featherweight champion Gary Russell Jr. and WBA featherweight champion Jesus Cuellar.
That makes the decision to match Santa Cruz in a title fight with former super bantamweight titlist Kiko Martinez in February an absolute farce. The fight is nearly complete, per Ben Jacobs of Boxing Scene.
Martinez's credentials as an opponent aren't even suspect, they're nonexistent, at least at this stage of his career and given his recent results in the ring.
He's won three fights in a row against absolute tomato cans since being blasted in the second round by Scott Quigg in his last world title fight in July 2015. That came just about a year after he lost his title and pretty much every round on all three scorecards against Carl Frampton.
So, not Cuellar. Not Russell. Hell, not even a Mares rematch.
Martinez.
A guy who has been dominated and stopped by two top fighters a weight division below in his most recent notable fights.
Good luck selling that one.
Who Will Claim a Vacant Heavyweight "Title"?
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By the end of Saturday night (in all likelihood) either Czar Glazkov or Charles Martin will be able to walk around with a belt and claim to be a world champion in boxing's heavyweight division.
It's come to that already.
Fury's bouncing of Klitschko from the heavyweight throne ensured some fracturing of the title belts that were held by Wlad all these years due to a willingness to make his mandatory defenses.
The Brit was contractually obligated for a rematch once he won the title, but, even if not, you can be certain he had less-than-zero interest in making a non-lucrative mandatory against a fighter with limited appeal.
The IBF stripped him for refusing to face Glazkov, and so, here we are.
The Ukrainian has been the beneficiary of some questionable calls in his career. You'll find a good number of people who felt his wins over Steve Cunningham and Derric Rossy and a draw with Malik Scott (world-beaters, none) could have and should have been losses.
His record of 21-0-1 could easily be 19-3 and far less impressive.
Martin is something of a wild card. He's completely untested, having never once beaten anyone resembling a heavyweight contender, former contender or a boxer with a pulse. He could be looking for a chance to seize the moment and shine, or he could be another undefeated fighter with a fluffy record filled with the stuff they put in pillows.
We'll find out Saturday night, but, one thing is for sure: Neither man will walk out of the Barclays Center a true world champion. One of them will have a belt, which is nice, but the division still belongs to the big guy from Manchester.
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