The Hottest Boxing Storylines for the Week of May 8

All it took was one big right hand.

Canelo Alvarez successfully defended his WBC Middleweight Championship with a one-punch demolition of former junior welterweight titlist Amir Khan on Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

We'll save you the platitudes and get right to the burning questions.

What did the cinnamon-haired superstar prove with his victory? Did he prove anything at all? 

And is now the time he put up or shut up about facing unified champion Gennady Golovkin?

We'll also give a serious amount of credit to Khan and take a look at what he could do next.

That, plus a review of former middleweight titlist David Lemieux's return, Showtime's signing of Anthony Joshua and where Anthony Crolla, fresh off an impressive title defense, ranks in the lightweight mix.

These are the hottest boxing storylines for the week!

What Did Canelo Prove?

John Locher/Associated Press

Canelo did prove a couple of things with his win over Khan on Saturday night.

One, the fight was every bit as predictable as we all imagined. 

Khan boxed well, but he got starched the second he made a mistake. It was a scenario that wasn't all that difficult to image when it was announced that a blown-up welterweight would be hopping two weight classes to face a power puncher. 

Two, he's a class act for checking on his destroyed foe almost before Kenny Bayless could even wave the fight off. He was scared, hell, we were all scared when that punch landed, and Khan bounced off the mat.

Three, given all the talk after the fight, including about national pride with a few bits of profanity and manhood chatter smattered in, Canelo now has no choice but to fight Golovkin in the fall.

He's made his bed.

No Manny Pacquiao. No David Lemieux. Nobody else.

GGG.

Khan was a sideshow. It was a fight designed to make bank at the box office against a named fighter while presenting minimal risks. No disrespect to the Brit, who deserves more credit than Canelo in this fight, but it was purely a business move. 

Canelo wants to be a fighter. He called GGG into the ring after the fight, as he said at the post-fight presser, to prove he wasn't afraid and then later told the media after the fight that he'd be willing to face him at the full divisional limit of 160 pounds (via The Vertical's Chris Mannix). 

His promoter Oscar De La Hoya, on the other hand, left some wiggle room. "I have four aces, and they have a pair of twos," he said at the presser, leaving some doubt that the negotiations will go smoothly as we all hope.

Either way, it's time to let this marinating crap go and make the fight.

The fans demand it, and the fighters need it.

Where Does Khan Go from Here?

John Locher/Associated Press

First, let's give Khan a ton of credit for daring to be great. That's something we don't see nearly enough of in the sport of boxing these days. Everyone talks about whether they "need" a guy or if the risks and rewards are perfectly aligned. Too often we hear more about why fights can't happen than why they should.

Khan has been reaching for a big fight for years, chasing Floyd Mayweather and Pacquiao to no avail, but he put his money where he mouth was when the bigger Canelo came calling. He probably should've said no, but he had guts, heart and a fierce desire to prove himself.

So, bravo, Amir Khan. You've earned something more valuable in boxing than a belt, and that's our respect.

And it's not like he gave a bad account of himself, quite the opposite, in fact.

For a guy who never weighed more than 147 pounds coming into a fight, Khan sure seemed to be befuddling and boxing the ears off Canelo in the early rounds. You could easily make the case he was ahead (the official judges, who did a poor job, disagreed) when his head was nearly twisted off his shoulders like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. 

So where does he go from here?

You can hardly hold this loss against him. 

A return to welterweight is clearly the best call, both for his chances and long-term health. Though, to be fair, that shot from Canelo would've knocked out a good many fighters not known for having Khan's chin issues. 

At welterweight Khan could choose from a bevy of attractive fights, including Adrien Broner, a championship rematch with Danny Garcia and a huge all-Brit showdown (which has been simmering too long) with Kell Brook.

Any of those fights make dollars and sense, and all of them are winnable.

Can David Lemieux Be a Middleweight Force Again?

Isaac Brekken/Associated Press

Lemieux didn't look to be a guy suffering any lingering effects from taking a brutal beating at the hands of Golovkin in a middleweight unification bout last October at Madison Square Garden. Granted, he was in there with an opponent chosen to be something of a punching bag, but he got the job done impressively.

He looked sharp, his power wasn't diminished and he took a couple of good shots from Glen Tapia, a rugged and brave fighter who had been stopped but never dropped prior to this fight. 

Lemieux put him down near the ropes in the fourth round, prompting what appeared in the arena and on television to be a quick hook by the corner, but one that makes more sense than you'd probably first think.

Tapia has a reputation as a fighter far too brave for his own good. His corner took a ton of deserved flak for allowing him to continue taking a dangerous beating from James Kirkland in 2013, and it's possible that made them reluctant to allow Lemieux to continue teeing off. 

The fight was by that point falling into a familiar pattern.

Lemieux was slinging hooks without the ability to miss, Tapia was eating most of them and firing back with softer shots in return. The pattern didn't show much sign of changing, and the Canadian slugger earned himself the 32nd knockout of his career.

He could wind up hitting the Canelo lottery, should a high-demand fight with GGG somehow (there are plenty of ways) fall through, or he could face someone like Curtis Stevens, who also reinvigorated his career on the undercard with a knockout of previously unbeaten Patrick Teixeira. 

The latter (we hope) is more likely, and it's a good match of two guys who really crack.

The Heavyweight Future Lands on Showtime

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Already the home of American heavyweight titlist Deontay Wilder, Showtime secured another big piece in the heavyweight puzzle with the announced signing of newly minted IBF champ Joshua to a "multifight deal," per Dan Rafael of ESPN.com.

Joshua won his title with a second-round knockout of Charles Martin last month in a fight that was televised by Showtime, so it's not a huge surprise the network will now serve as his exclusive American television partner. 

Showtime now has the luxury of having both Wilder and Joshua to build its heavyweight product around and (assuming Wilder can navigate a dangerous title defense against Alexander Povetkin in June) eventually toward one another.

Joshua is slated to make the first defense of his heavyweight title June 25 in London against undefeated American contender and former Olympian Dominic Breazeale. 

Breazeale is a big guy in his own right, but his stock has dropped a bit in recent fights. He got what many considered to be a gift decision over Fred Kassi last September and was dropped by Amir Mansour before a broken jaw ended the fight in his favor.

It's not a bad fight for a first defense, though Joshua will (deservedly) enter as a substantial favorite.

Where Does Anthony Crolla Rank After His Big Win?

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Crolla showed some guts, moxie and a tremendous commitment to the game plan in his seventh-round knockout of previously unbeaten challenger Ismael Barroso in Manchester on Saturday night.

The WBA lightweight champion had to weather a tremendous early storm from his Venezuelan challenger, who got off to a fast start and seemed to have his man in some trouble after a dominant fourth round. 

Barroso threw a ton of punches in the third and fourth, and he opened a cut by Crolla's right eye.

But he didn't leave anything in the tank.

Nothing.

Crolla waited out his man perfectly, turning on the jets when he knew Barroso had punched himself out and ending things with a Ricky Hatton-esque body shot in the seventh that crumpled his foe and left him wanting no more. 

The lightweight division is a wide-open playground right now.

Jorge Linares is probably the division's best fighter, but his hold on that spot is anything but set in stone.

Crolla has an opportunity to continue making waves after this performance, and maybe it's time to look again at matching him in an all-Manchester unification bout with Terry Flanagan.