The Hottest Boxing Storylines for the Week of July 24
Terence Crawford came, saw and dominated on Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
His pay-per-view debut went about as well as anyone could've hoped.
In a fight that was labeled a 50-50 contest by most in the boxing community, the Omaha, Nebraska, native staked his claim for one of boxing's top pound-for-pound spots with a surprisingly easy victory. There was simply nothing close about the action in the ring.
Did he earn himself a clash with Manny Pacquiao? And is he boxing's big new star?
Speaking of Pacquiao, we now know when he plans to fight. But who will he fight? And will it be on HBO PPV?
And then, in this week's action, we take a look at Leo Santa Cruz's big title defense against Carl Frampton Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, Mikey Garcia's return to the ring the same night on the same card and Adonis Stevenson's quest to return to relevance.
These are the hottest boxing storylines for the week!
Did Crawford Earn Himself a Pacquiao Tilt?
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Crawford added to the chorus of people who believe he is boxing's next breakout star with a dominant performance against Viktor Postol on Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on HBO PPV.
He didn't just look good. He outclassed his opponent.
And he did it in a big spot, dropping his man twice and winning no less than nine rounds. All of this in his debut on a pay-per-view platform with a potential shot at one of the sport's biggest icons on the line.
Crawford, now unified WBC/WBO and The Ring Magazine champion at 140 pounds, would seem to jump to the front of the line to land the Pacquiao assignment in the fall.
At least, if you believe the stories that came out prior to the fight.
It's the fight that fight fans will want, and it has a great chance of coming together.
Crawford is certainly more attractive and marketable than Jessie Vargas, who is a solid fighter but won't do anything for the fans.
Bob Arum, who promotes both men, told USA Today prior to Crawford-Postol that the winner of the fight would have a good shot of being the man standing across the ring from Pacquiao when he returns.
That's a fight that entices Crawford, for obvious reasons, but there could be a stumbling block.
Per Bob Velin of USA Today, Crawford is interested in the bout, but he'd only be willing (as of now, at least) to fight Pacquiao at 140 pounds. Whether or not Manny would be willing to jump back down to junior welterweight (where he hasn't competed since 2009) remains to be seen.
Are People Sleeping on Santa Cruz-Frampton?
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Santa Cruz defends his WBA Featherweight Championship against former unified super bantamweight champion Carl Frampton Saturday night in the main event of a Showtime card at the Barclays Center.
Santa Cruz seems to be a heavy favorite among boxing insiders, many of whom appear to be completely dismissing the Jackal's chances of coming over to the States and unseating a rising world champion.
You can understand the love for Santa Cruz.
The Mexican is unbeaten and has an exciting fighting style that could turn him into a huge star, so long as he's managed correctly and avoids the soft matchmaking that opened him up to criticism in the not-so-distant past.
He answered some of those questions with an impressive win over multi-time world champion Abner Mares. A big performance here would restore a great deal of the luster lost while facing subpar challengers.
Frampton is still something of an unknown commodity in the United States. He's only fought here once, and that wasn't the best performance of his career.
Alejandro Gonzalez Jr., an unheralded challenger, dropped him twice in the opening round of a 2015 fight that saw the Jackal need to rise off the deck to avoid disaster with a unanimous-decision win. He recently unified the super bantamweight division with a lackluster, safety-first decision win over domestic rival Scott Quigg.
Santa Cruz-Frampton is one of the better fights of the year. You shouldn't be surprised if it exceeds what seems to be some surprisingly low expectations.
How Will Mikey Garcia Look?
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Garcia had the look of a rising star in the sport before he took a hiatus and sat on the shelf for two-and-a-half years after successfully defending his super featherweight championship against Juan Carlos Burgos in January 2014.
The time off coincided with a contract dispute with his promoter Top Rank, which was settled this past April.
Per Dan Rafael of ESPN, Garcia, who will return as the co-featured bout of the Santa Cruz-Frampton card on Showtime, is not signed to a promoter yet and has no commitments to anyone beyond his return bout. That could obviously change, but, for now, Showtime would seem to have the inside track.
Either way, he's in a good position with open options.
Garcia's opponent will be former featherweight titlist Elio Rojas.
Rojas is an interesting choice for a comeback opponent. He was a decent-enough fighter in his day, but he's been out of the ring for almost two years and has only fought twice in the last four years. He's sporadically active, at best.
So, this should be a relatively safe test for Garcia, unless he's seen some serious erosion of his skills after spending about 30 months out of the game.
That's the key question.
Garcia will face Rojas at junior welterweight, but he plans to return to 135 pounds for his next fight and compete for a world championship in a wide-open division. That's a good weight for him and a neighborhood where—with his skills and talent—he could dominate.
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Will Pacquiao's Return Be on HBO?
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Pacquiao has had a hard time finding a suitable opponent, site and maybe now even network for his scheduled return to the ring this fall.
Per Rafael, the Filipino icon will fight on November 5 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. All MGM Grand properties (Mandalay Bay, Garden Arena and T-Mobile Arena) had prior commitments that couldn't be moved to accommodate the fight on PPV.
The big question is whether it will be on HBO PPV.
HBO is committed to the anticipated showdown between unified light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev and Andre Ward, which is scheduled to take place November 19 at the T-Mobile Arena.
Rafael points out that it would be highly unusual for HBO to stage two separate PPV events in the same month. That might necessitate Bob Arum, who promotes Pacquiao, to either shift the date of the fight or go out into the wilderness without HBO.
Shifting the date could be difficult.
Pacquiao was elected to a six-year term as a senator in his native Philippines shortly after he soundly defeated Timothy Bradley in the rubber match of their trilogy. He only committed to fight so long as his training schedule didn't interfere with his official responsibilities.
His most likely opponents are Crawford, who is known as a bonafide pound-for-pound star, and, thus a big risk, and WBO welterweight champion Jessie Vargas. The former, obviously, now stands with a bit more appeal than he had entering last week.
Can Adonis Stevenson Return to Relevance?
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Stevenson has made himself the most irrelevant world champion in boxing today.
He holds the WBC Light Heavyweight Championship and the lineal title by virtue of his colossal one-punch knockout of Chad Dawson back in 2013—a fight that seems a lifetime ago.
Since winning that fight and the titles, Stevenson has developed a reputation as a fighter who goes out of his way to avoid tough challenges. It seems he often picks the easiest fights available.
He jumped ship from HBO to avoid a unification match with Sergey Kovalev and scuttled matches with Bernard Hopkins and Jean Pascal in favor of Dmitry Sukhotsky, Sakio Bika and club fighter Tommy Karpency.
In that same time, the light heavyweight division, which he's supposed to rule, has passed him by.
Kovalev has beaten Hopkins and Pascal twice. Andre Ward, one of boxing's top pound-for-pound fighters, now resides at 175 pounds and is one tune-up fight away from his own PPV showdown with the Russian Krusher.
Stevenson? You hardly hear much about him these days. But he does have a tricky title defense coming up Friday night at the Centre Videotron in Quebec against top-rated contender Thomas Williams Jr.
Williams is the toughest opponent Stevenson's faced in quite some time, and he earned this shot by thrashing Edwin Rodriguez inside of two rounds on the Victor Ortiz vs. Andre Berto undercard. He's got a big punch, but his defense can be leaky—something that could prove troublesome against Stevenson's huge power.
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