The Hottest Boxing Storylines for the Week of January 24
Now that Snowmageddon has passed on the East Coast (we hope), let's get back to the serious business of digging out and talking some boxing!
Danny Garcia claimed a world championship in a second division Saturday night on Premier Boxing Champions with his hard-fought victory over a game Robert Guerrero.
We take a look at Garcia's performance, as well as Guerrero's, and decide whether Garcia proved he's ready for the elites of a talented welterweight division.
Then we turn our eyes toward upcoming action and some of the weekend's interesting hijinks.
Is Jean Pascal smart to be poking and prodding the bear ahead of his big rematch with Sergey Kovalev Saturday night on HBO?
What was up with Amir Khan's ranting and raving on Twitter last week?
Has Gennady Golovkin finally found someone willing and able to fight him later in the year?
Finally, will the WBA's latest idea help clean up the ridiculous belt situation in boxing?
These are your hottest boxing storylines for the week.
Did Danny Garcia Prove He's Ready for Elite Welterweights?
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The answer to the question in the headline? Yes.
Garcia took a tough decision from Guerrero to win the vacant WBC Welterweight Championship most recently held by now-retired Floyd Mayweather Jr. on Saturday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. He struggled in the early rounds, allowing his wily foe to build up a lead with smart aggression, before turning things around with his superior speed and technique to win going away.
Guerrero, a former multi-weight titlist, was viewed as a decent test for Garcia in his second welterweight fight, even if The Ghost's best days seemed to be way back in the rearview mirror. He gave a good account of himself, pressuring effectively before seeming to fade late in the fight.
It looks like Guerrero has at least one more go in him. He certainly earned that based on this performance.
The win gave the Philadelphian of Puerto Rican heritage a world championship in a second weight class. He had unified the junior welterweight division and ruled over the roost with wins over Khan and Lucas Matthysse and now should be ready for the elite competitors in his new division.
Khan is his mandatory challenger, and that's a rematch that fans would certainly welcome after the stunning nature of Garcia's win in their first bout nearly four years ago.
Down the line, unification showdowns with the likes of Kell Brook, Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter (whoever emerges from their March 12 fight) also present attractive options for the new champ. And those are the types of high-level fights that will put to rest any lingering questions about Garcia or his in-ring credentials.
Has Jean Pascal Poked the Bear?
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You have to give Pascal, a former lineal light heavyweight champion, some credit.
He either thinks his constant stream of vitriol toward Kovalev and his team (he's called Kovalev racist and argued he was coming back when their first bout was stopped) will provide him with some mental advantage in their rematch Saturday night, or he's fine having to face an angry, determined Krusher who has no problem inflicting some serious bodily harm.
Kovalev said he's rematching Pascal to shut him up, hurt him and send him into retirement, per Edward Chaykovsky of Boxing Scene: "Pascal has said bad things to my side. I have a reason for fighting him. I think Pascal has reason to say thank you to Luis Pabon—the referee for the fight. He forgot to say thank you very much that he saved his health and life maybe. Because he was already drunk, you know like spaghetti legs."
Uh, OK. Good luck, Jean.
Kovalev had some sloppy moments against Pascal, but he dropped him in Round 3 and stopped him with some vicious clean right hands in Round 8, leaving the former champ on queer street. Both the knockdown and knockouts were the first of Pascal's career.
The former champ looked pedestrian in struggling to what many felt was a gift decision over Yunieski Gonzalez in his most recent fight last July, which doesn't seem to bode well for his chances against an opponent who seems to get better in each fight.
Will the mental games work out?
It doesn't seem likely, but give Pascal credit for having some serious guts, if not necessarily brains.
Amir Khan Gets Angry but Still Doesn't Have a Fight
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Khan's Twitter feed was on fire Friday.
The former junior welterweight champion, who has been underactive (is that a word?) these last couple of years while chasing big fights against Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao (without proving why he should meet them in the ring), tore into virtually everyone he perceived to have slighted him.
It was either pure gold or delusion, depending on your perspective.
Khan criticized Pacquiao and Co. for deciding on a third Bradley fight and shifting the blame to his team.
Then he criticized IBF welterweight champ and possibly huge domestic rival Kell Brook for wanting a 50-50 split in negotiations for a stadium fight in England between the two.
Brook's promoter Eddie Hearn disputed that claim, per Chaykovsky.
The veteran matchmaker claimed Khan (and he too claimed multiple people dealt on Khan's behalf, making the situation confusing) demanded an 80-20 split for a fight with Brook and that his team countered with 60-40, which seems fair.
He tweeted that he "spat out my coffee" when he heard Khan's proposed terms.
Hearn also said he believes Khan is trying to price himself out because it's a fight he doesn't truly want. Hearn offered, again via Twitter, the fight in June, with Khan receiving the majority of the purse, despite Brook being the champ.
What a mess, and Khan, whatever you may think of his play here or his plays over the last several years, once again looks more like a talker than a fighter. He should fight Brook, but will he?
Khan is next in line to face Garcia, now that the Philadelphian has captured welterweight gold, in a rematch of what was a stunning knockout loss for the Brit in 2012.
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Is Matt Korobov Next Up for GGG?
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Golovkin has had a hard time finding someone willing and able to fight him.
Stop me if you've heard this before.
The undefeated Kazakh wrecking ball unified half of the middleweight title with his stoppage win over David Lemieux last October (he also holds the WBC's interim title to go along with his full WBA and IBF belts) and seems on a collision course with WBC middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez in the fall.
The two agreed to take interim bouts to help hype their eventual showdown, and neither man has had an easy time of securing an opponent with credibility.
Golovkin tried to further unify by calling out and making an offer to newly crowned WBO champ Billy Joe Saunders, but the Brit wasn't happy with the financials (and isn't anywhere in the ballpark of being ready for GGG) and elected to (smartly) take a different path.
That left mandatory challenger Tureano Johnson the most likely foe, but the Bahamian was forced to decline the fight because of an injury to his right rotator cuff that possibly could need surgery, per Dan Rafael of ESPN.com.
Matt Korobov seems to be the next in line, per Ryan Burton of Boxing Scene.
That's not a sexy opponent (those are in short supply), but the Russian has some history with GGG.
The two fought in the amateurs in 2003 with Golovkin taking the nod, so that could add an additional layer of intrigue to a bout that hopefully will be the last before GGG and Canelo get down to fighting.
The WBA Tries...but Will It Work?
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You don't have to like Tyson Fury, but by God and country the man is the heavyweight champion of the world.
Too dramatic?
The World Boxing Association (WBA) has been a frequent source of criticism in this weekly column (as in many other boxing publications and websites) for its propensity to award a truly ludicrous number of world championships. There are 42 WBA world champions spread among boxing's 17 weight classes.
Last week, WBA President Gilberto Mendoza, aware of the mounting criticism, announced plans to reduce the number of belts put into play by his organization, per Rafael. The preferred path seems to be via tournaments that match the WBA's various "super," "interim" and just plain vanilla regular world champions against one another to see who shakes out with the real world title.
The WBA already announced the first of these such tournaments (in the heavyweight division) via its official Twitter account, but, while well-intentioned, it raised a couple of legitimate questions.
Fury, the recognized champion and holder of the WBA's "super" belt, will face off with former champion Wladimir Klitschko in their pre-planned rematch. The winner of that bout would move on to face the winner of Luis Ortiz vs. Alexander Ustinov (Ortiz holds the "interim" title) to clear up one belt.
On the other side of the bracket, "regular" champion Ruslan Chagaev faces Lucas Browne, with the winner advancing to take on—get this—Fres Oquendo, who hasn't fought in a year-and-a-half, lost his last fight and hasn't beaten a fighter of note this decade.
Oquendo's inclusion was puzzling, to say the absolute least, but he did win a lawsuit (possibly the most significant win of his career) in the United States that entitled him to a rematch with Chagaev after their first fight was close and somewhat controversial.
Let's put that to the side. Say what you will about all that jazz.
Is the idea a good one?
Yes, but starting in the heavyweight division where there is one champion seems like a bad play.
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