2017 Wish Lists for Boxing's Top Stars
With the holidays now in the rearview mirror and another 12 months of boxing ahead of us, we decided it would be a good time to take a look at some of the wish list items for boxing's top stars.
You know, the things they'd want the most in 2017.
Now, it's important to remember this is what the fighters want, and this might not necessarily always jibe with what you, the fans, may want to see or have happen.
Some of these are intended to be serious, and some are intended to be funny.
Some are intended to be both, but even the funny ones are tinged with a ring of truth.
Feel free to comment, criticize and/or add in the comments section.
These are the top 2017 wish list items for boxing's biggest stars!
Roman Gonzalez: Big Money, Bigger Fights
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Roman "Chocolatito" Gonzalez enters 2017 as boxing's consensus No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter and with a bevy of great options for big fights on the horizon. But he has one problem that could prevent some of those in-demand matchups from coming off.
The almighty dollar.
Gonzalez has been linked to a potential rematch with Carlos Cuadras—their first bout was a Fight of the Year contender—on the March 18 Gennady Golovkin vs. Daniel Jacobs undercard at Madison Square Garden in New York City, but financial terms have thus far prevented the bout from being finalized.
Haxel Ruben Murillo of BoxingScene.com reports Gonzalez, who earned $400,000 when he moved up in weight and took Cuadras' super flyweight title last September, is looking for closer to $1 million for the rematch.
Is that unreasonable?
Not for a P4P king.
But lower-weight fighters—at least in the United States—have rarely commanded the type of demand, which translates to dollars, that earns them seven-figure paychecks. Chocolatito is obviously a special case, so we hope (and he hopes) the money materializes so we can see good fights.
It would suck (for him and us) to see money deprive the fans of rematches with Cuadras and Juan Francisco Estrada or a brewing hardcore fans' megafight with Naoya Inoue.
Canelo Alvarez: Jacobs to Land the Punch
2 of 10
Canelo Alvarez is clearly boxing's biggest star.
But he has a shadow.
Golovkin will continue to dog him for however long that fight gets pushed off, and for however long Canelo's promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, insists on making excuses for why boxing fans—who waited nearly a decade for Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao to give them a dud—should wait for his golden goose to be ready for the sport's most feared fighter.
That might seem unnecessarily critical, but the very public discussion of an all-Mexican showdown with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. at super middleweight seems to call nonsense (we're being polite) on De La Hoya/Canelo's constant claims that the cinnamon-haired star isn't yet a middleweight.
De La Hoya recently promised on ESPN's First Take program that Canelo would meet GGG in 2017. But you'll need to forgive us for taking a "believe it when we see it" approach to that promise.
Golovkin first needs to get past Jacobs March 18 on HBO pay-per-view.
Maybe Canelo and his team can find a solution to their problem in Jacobs.
The Brooklyn, New York, fighter has some huge pop on his punches, and maybe he can land something big enough to slay the dragon before Canelo needs to either face him or continue answering questions about when he will and why he hasn't yet.
Sergey Kovalev: Andre Ward to Not Retire
3 of 10
You want to argue that the second half of Sergey Kovalev's disputed November decision loss to Andre Ward was much closer than the first?
You'll get no argument here.
Heck, you can even say that Ward was the better fighter after the fight hit the midway point.
That's more open to interpretation and debate, but it's certainly a defensible point of view, even if not everyone will agree.
But to say he won every single round?
Nah.
Either way, Kovalev hopes to get a second bite at this apple in the coming year.
Kovalev had an immediate rematch clause in the contract for his first fight with Ward, something he activated in the days after the fight. Ward has been reluctant to sign on, however, demanding additional money for a second fight or else he'll retire, per TMZ Sports.
He reemphasized that again in comments to Rolling Stone saying he's unsure whether it makes sense to keep fighting, per Mike Bohn.
That's like the most Andre Ward thing ever, and Kovalev, along with basically everyone who has a vested interest in the success of boxing, should hope this ridiculousness ends soon and a rematch can become a reality without any more stalling or sulking.
Gennady Golovkin: Big PPV Numbers
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Golovkin's March title defense against Jacobs will be the second PPV appearance of his career. That's obviously not ideal, given the overall depressed nature of the boxing PPV market, but it had to be done in order to meet financial demands and make the fight happen.
It was either that or not fight, so, on balance, we'll deal.
GGG's first pay-TV outing came in October 2015 against then-fellow middleweight titlist David Lemieux. That bout, despite selling out Madison Square Garden, received a tepid response with just about 150,000 PPV subscriptions, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN.com.
It's no surprise marketing—and, thus, money—will be a big factor in any negotiations for a Canelo fight.
Miguel Rivera of BoxingScene.com reported in September that Golden Boy Promotions wasn't offering Golovkin a revenue split on a fight with Canelo but a flat fee. The company defended that position by pointing to the Kazakh wrecking ball's lack of PPV drawing power.
That's straight out of the Mayweather playbook from a fighter and promoter who promised to usher in a new era after being hotly critical of Floyd's risk-averse behavior. De La Hoya even wrote him a scathing letter in Playboy basically calling him a coward (h/t Boxing Junkie).
Golden Boy's negotiating tactic puts some added pressure on GGG's side to do good business in the fight with Jacobs to advance its bargaining position.
Canelo has seen his own PPV numbers shrink recently.
He drew 900,000 buys for his fight with Miguel Cotto, 500,000 for a bout with Amir Khan and around 300,000 for his challenge of Liam Smith last September, per Lance Pugmire of the Los Angeles Times.
Few expect Team Golovkin to accept a flat fee for a fight that is potentially so lucrative, and a big night at the box office against Jacobs could help its case quite a bit.
Andre Ward: Some Love
5 of 10
Ward is an undefeated, two-weight champion and the last American male boxer to win an Olympic gold medal.
He's also one of the sport's most maligned fighters.
That isn't without some valid reasons.
Sure, he didn't deserve the decision against Kovalev (in this writer's opinion, at least), but even his detractors need to be fair enough to give him credit for coming back from a brutal second-round knockdown to work his way back into the fight.
We all knew Ward, one of the best (if not the best) technical fighters in boxing, was savvy and had an off-the-charts ring IQ, but we didn't know he had the wherewithal to weather that type of storm.
Kudos to him for being a tremendous pro and easily one of the best P4P fighters in the business, even if he doesn't feel like he gets the respect he deserves and is threatening to walk away.
Ward's biggest problem, and the reason he doesn't get the love or respect he has rightfully earned, seems to be the fact his career has been managed so oddly.
He wasted good prime years of his career fighting a series of losing legal battles and doesn't seem terribly concerned with being active enough to really build a fanbase.
A rematch with Kovalev, particularly if he can score a more decisive victory (not out of the question), could help to solve all his problems and get him some of the love from the fans he deserves.
Terence Crawford: Floyd to Stay Retired
6 of 10
Terence Crawford is one of the brightest young stars in the sport today, but two of his three fights in 2016 came against opposition that posed absolutely no threat to him. And his signature win—a dominating decision over Viktor Postol in a unification bout—came on PPV away from the eyes of many fans.
He's in need of a big fight to take that next step.
Manny Pacquiao is the big fish in the Top Rank stable. He's responded well and doesn't seem to have any lingering effects from the letdown that was his long-awaited challenge of Mayweather.
But he's 38 years old and, despite big wins over top-10 welterweights Timothy Bradley and Jessie Vargas in 2016, he doesn't seem to have much time left in this game.
His Senate schedule in the Philippines ensures he can only fight during certain times of the year, and it would make plenty of sense for Bob Arum's company to use Pacquiao to catapult Crawford to superstardom.
The only other fight that really makes sense for Pacquiao—or Top Rank—would be if Mayweather were to unretire and decide to give Pac-Man another go. Their first fight generated a half-billion dollars in revenue, and, at even a fraction of that, a rematch would be the most lucrative fight in the sport.
Crawford's chances of landing Pacaquiao would seem to increase if Floyd stays retired, even if Pac-Man is demanding a ridiculous (and completely divorced from reality) $20 million for the fight, per Nick Gionco of the Manila Bulletin.
Vasyl Lomachenko: More Fights
7 of 10
Vasyl Lomachenko can make a compelling case that he already deserves recognition as boxing's top P4P fighter. Remember, the purpose of the P4P list is to assess who is the best fighter regardless of weight class, and that doesn't necessitate factoring in their body of work.
It's a measure of skill and not accomplishment.
But even by that latter metric, what the Ukrainian has done is truly remarkable.
Lomachenko, who has won world titles in two weight classes through eight fights, had one of boxing's most impressive 2016 campaigns, even though he only fought twice.
He began the year with a dominant knockout of Rocky Martinez to win a world title in June followed by making Nicholas Walters—who many felt would be his toughest challenger—literally quit in a fight where he looked so amateurish that all of us who called it a close fight on paper looked stupid.
Two great wins and they put him in the conversation for Fighter of the Year, but they just weren't enough.
Lomachenko has all the trappings of a big star. He's personable, amazingly talented and has the backing of a major promoter and network. But he can't be relegated to just two in-ring appearances a year. That's borderline criminal if you're trying to build a star.
He needs to see more of the ring during 2017, especially with all the big names awaiting him in and around his weight class.
Anthony Joshua: Tyson Fury to Get His Act Together
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Anthony Joshua's rise to the top of the heavyweight heap has been meteoric.
He started 2016 as a prospect before striking while the iron was hot to take the IBF Heavyweight Championship from Charles Martin with a colossal knockout in April.
Two successful defenses—against Dominic Breazeale and Eric Molina—have led to a huge showdown with longtime heavyweight kingpin Wladimir Klitschko in April at Wembley Stadium. We're not going to disrespect the former champ, who had a legendary run, but that feels like a changing-of-the-guard fight.
Should Joshua win, which we anticipate he will, there will be two megafights available for him to consolidate his position in the division.
Deontay Wilder holds the WBC Heavyweight Championship and will return from injury with a ho-hum defense against seemingly hopelessly overmatched Andrzej Wawrzyk (yes, who?) in February.
But even bigger than that, especially across the pond, could come a showdown with Tyson Fury, should he be able to put his demons to rest and return to full-time competition.
Fury is still the man to beat in the division by virtue of his one-sided (but boring as all hell) unanimous decision over Klitschko in November 2015. Things quickly fell off the rails for him following that win, but if, and that's a big if, he can right the ship, there will be nothing bigger than Joshua-Fury for all the marbles.
Manny Pacquiao: Another Crack at Floyd
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Warning: If you don't want to read any more about Mayweather and Pacquiao, just skip to the next slide.
Hopefully, there are a few of you out there still reading.
Let's not rehash too much of this.
Mayweather-Pacquiao made a ton of money. It wasn't a very good fight.
Many fans woke up on the morning of May 3, 2015, feeling like they'd been had. Countless numbers of new fans (or people who tuned in just because it was such a big event) were turned off from the sport because the "Fight of the Century" proved such a colossal failure once the fighters were in the ring.
Pacquiao later claimed an injury, for which he had surgery shortly after the fight, which only further rankled the fans who shelled out huge amounts of money to see a guy who said he was damaged goods.
Yes, it's toxic.
Yes, a lot of you will feel like your intelligence is being insulted.
And you'll be right.
But with his time in this game seemingly very short, you'd be a fool to think Pacquiao wouldn't wish for one last crack at Floyd and all the ensuing benjamins that would bring into his bank account.
Carl Frampton: No Vegas Tomfoolery
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Carl Frampton came into the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, last July with a small army of Irish and British supporters there to see him take on Leo Santa Cruz for the WBA Featherweight Championship. Sitting ringside, it was a raucous atmosphere that felt more like a UK boxing atmosphere than an American one.
And what a fight it turned out to be.
Frampton and Santa Cruz slugged it out for 12 rounds, and the Irish fighter earned a deserved decision in a fight that swung on a couple of close rounds. It was a fair and legitimate ruling based on the action in the ring.
The pair is set for a rematch January 28 in Las Vegas, which, unfortunately, has produced its share of head-scratching verdicts (particularly for road fighters) over the past year or so.
We've already been through Kovalev's judging struggles against Ward, but Darleys Perez was absolutely ripped off and jobbed on the same card by some horrific judges who saddled him with a draw against Maurice Hooker.
Every big-name fighter wants to fight in Las Vegas.
The bright lights are associated with boxing.
Frampton better just hope the judges are watching the fight.
The last thing we need is to start the year with a high-profile judging controversy.
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