The Hottest Boxing Storylines for the Week of July 10
Well, that was an interesting past week.
Gennady Golovkin will defend his WBC, WBA and IBF Middleweight Championships against IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook September 10 at the O2 Arena in London on HBO. The fight came out of literally nowhere and has caused quite the ripple in the boxing community.
We debate whether GGG deserves a pass for reaching down for a welterweight opponent, given that all the credible middleweights who were discussed refused the fight.
On the same topic, we give Brook his props before asking whether he's gutsy or crazy.
Sergey Kovalev fights Monday in Russia, with the bout serving as his final obstacle before a megafight with Andre Ward in the fall. We take a look at what The Krusher needs to do.
All that, plus we take a look at Deontay Wilder's title defense Saturday night against Chris Arreola and a pair of recently announced IBF purse bids.
These are the hottest boxing storylines for the week!
Does Golovkin Get a Pass for Fighting Brook?
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Golovkin thrust himself squarely into the cross-hairs of many boxing fans Friday when he announced via Twitter that he'd make his next title defense in the United Kingdom against current IBF welterweight champion Brook.
The announcement was a bolt from the blue, since both men were expected to be lined up for other fights and no word of negotiations had reached the media. There was plenty of condemnation, but this fight can be justified from a business standpoint.
And it's not like Team GGG had any better options.
Golovkin and team desperately tried to get Canelo Alvarez in the ring this fall. The Mexican talked tough (almost to GGG's face) and then turned tail to hide behind his promoters and move down in weight for a fight nobody wanted and few will pay to see against Liam Smith.
Can't blame GGG for that one.
Chris Eubank Jr. seemed the logical next choice, and negotiations seemed to be going smoothly. The Brit talked himself up and brought the verbal heat before balking when it came time to sign the contract.
ESPN.com's Dan Rafael reported that Eddie Hearn, who promotes both Eubank and Brook, sent the fighter's father a contract, which they did not sign and blew off the deadline.
Hearn blamed the "crazy demands" of the Eubank camp and said he believes the fighter wanted the fight but that his father dropped the ball on what would have been a massive payday. The younger Eubank could have made £3-5 million for the fight.
Eubank has been vocal on Twitter since, apparently not seeming to realize that he (or his dad) torpedoed his chance at the fight.
GGG's camp offered Brook the fight when the deadline passed, and he immediately accepted, taking the same terms that Eubank passed on.
This fight makes plenty of business sense for GGG.
Brook is a name fighter and a known quantity in the United Kingdom. With the fight taking place in London, Brook gives Golovkin a chance to extend his star to a huge international boxing market after already selling out venues in New York City and Los Angeles.
Does he deserve a pass?
Maybe, maybe not, but you can understand the logic behind this play.
Plus, it's on HBO, so it won't cost you anything.
Is Brook Gutsy or Crazy?
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Brook is definitely gutsy, and he might be a bit crazy as well.
The Sheffield star says he accepted the fight "within minutes" of it being offered to him, per an official press release to announce the fight, and he's upped his standing with boxing fans for having the guts to sign up for a fight with the sport's most feared fighter when so many others refused.
"This is the ultimate fight, one of the biggest international fights the country has seen in many years—you have seen some huge names run from GGG but I'm running to him," Brook said.
His decision to move up from welterweight to middleweight (a 13-pound jump) comes against the backdrop of high-profile middleweights Canelo, Eubank and WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders making noise about facing GGG but ultimately deciding to go in other directions.
Brook looks to have more guts than all of those guys, even as virtually everyone will think he's crazy for stepping up to face a fighter who holds the highest knockout ratio in middleweight championship history and has stopped 22 men in a row.
It's a no-lose situation professionally, at least.
From the standpoint of his health, well, that might be another question entirely.
Brook gets to parade around now as the guy who shamed all the other guys who didn't take the risk, and if he loses, he doesn't really lose anything.
But if he finds a way to shock the world?
Can Kovalev Advance to Face Andre Ward?
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Kovalev defends his three light heavyweight championships on HBO Monday in his native Russia against veteran contender Isaac Chilemba, and while The Krusher can't afford to look forward, we can.
Chilemba is the last thing that stands in the Russian's way of securing a lucrative and high-profile bout with Andre Ward, who like Kovalev is a consensus pick as one of the sport's top pound-for-pound fighters.
Kovalev and Ward are slated to meet for all the light heavyweight marbles that matter November 19 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on HBO pay-per-view.
Ward also has an interim bout scheduled, but few expect Alexander Brand to upset former super middleweight champ on August 6 at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California.
So, barring something truly shocking, it all comes down to Kovalev vs. Chilemba.
Kovalev long dreamed of staging a fight near his hometown, and as a result he's motivated to put on a good show. That seems like bad news for Chilemba, a 29-year-old from Malawi who has become one of the sport's hard-luck figures and is a credible foe but probably impossibly outgunned.
Chilemba has never been knocked out, but he's never been in there with a fighter as exceptionally violent and powerful as Kovalev.
Nothing here smells like an upset, which is good news for the fans in what has been a disappointing boxing year devoid of the fights the people really want to see.
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Will Wilder Have Any Trouble with Arreola?
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Wilder's level of difficulty in this fight can be approximated by the fact that Arreola appeared on a computer screen at the presser to announce the fight.
We kid, kind of.
This should be little more than a pro-forma defense for America's heavyweight champion at this stage of both men's respective careers.
Arreola was a solid contender some years back.
He was undefeated before Vitali Klitschko ripped him to shreds in a 2009 title challenge. Bermane Stiverne also stopped him in a second title challenge for the vacant title that Wilder holds today.
Since then, all his wins have come against second- and third-tier guys, and he's been the beneficiary of some generous scoring in his last two bouts. Arreola has been candid that he doesn't really deserve this opportunity, but he's going to come to fight and give it his best.
That, at least, is one thing you can always say for him. He's not a world beater, but he always comes to fight and doesn't lie down.
Wilder is essentially blameless for this fight, which boxing fans have met with a cold response.
He was scheduled to defend his belt in what was the consensus toughest fight of his career before a couple of failed drug tests from Alexander Povetkin shelved that bout.
The Povetkin situation is still ongoing, with dueling lawsuits, a new ruling from the World Anti-Doping Agency that the Russian didn't break its rules and the WBC having not yet reached a final ruling.
That's the backdrop to this fight, which the WBC allowed while it investigates, but it probably won't make a whole lot of difference.
Arreola will fight hard, but Wilder's big punch should end his night before long.
A Week of Purse Bids
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Julian "J Rock" Williams has been pressing for a title shot for some time now, and it seems the time has finally come. The IBF ordered a match between its 154-pound champion Jermall Charlo (24-0, 18 KO) and Williams (22-0-1, 14 KO) on May 30, and with the sides unable to reach an agreement, the sanctioning body has now called for a purse bid July 19.
A purse bid auctions off the rights to promote the fight to the highest bidder with the champion getting a significantly higher split of the purse—something that certainly won't bother J Rock, who just wants the opportunity he's earned.
Charlo vs. Williams is a fascinating matchup between two highly skilled and undefeated young fighters.
It's likely to happen in September.
The IBF will hold a second purse bid on the same day.
Rances Barthelemy vacated the IBF's 135-pound title when he decided to move up in weight, and Richard Commey (24-0, 22 KO) and highly rated prospect Robert Easter Jr. (17-0, 14 KO) will meet for the belt.
Commey, of Ghana, has spent most of his career fighting overseas (just one fight in the U.S. but an impressive win) and is not well known among American fight fans.
Easter recently blew out former 130-pound titlist Argenis Mendez to put the rest of the division on notice that he's on the rise. He will be looking for his first world championship.
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