The Hottest Boxing Storylines for the Week of January 8
It's the first fight week of 2017!
Badou Jack and James DeGale will clash Saturday night at the Barclays Center with the WBC and IBF Super Middleweight Championships on the line. This 50-50 fight between two champs in their primes will establish the man to beat at 168 pounds.
We take a look at that fight here.
Also, Erislandy Lara will defend his 154-pound title Friday night in what has been a heavily criticized fight.
Is this the worst Premier Boxing Champions main event of all time?
All that, plus: Manny Pacquiao's potentially fight-derailing purse demands for a bout with Terence Crawford, whether Canelo Alvarez's fight with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. has hit the skids and Roman Gonzalez's next title defense.
These are the hottest boxing storylines for the week!
Who Has the Edge in Jack-DeGale?
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Jack and DeGale will meet in the main event Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, to unify the WBC (Jack) and IBF (DeGale) Super Middleweight Championships. The two 168-pound fighters are ranked No. 1 and 2 in the division by The Ring Magazine.
Jack captured his world title in a minor upset of Anthony Dirrell last year. He had a four-fight winning streak that snapped when incompetent judges saddled him with a controversial draw against Lucian Bute last April in a fight where he won at least eight rounds.
It was among the worst decisions of the year.
DeGale has won 13 fights in a row and a world championship since his lone loss to George Groves in 2011. That includes victories over Andre Dirrell and Bute, whom he took down by a comfortable decision last year.
He's the first British fighter in history to capture both an Olympic gold medal (which he did at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing) and a world championship.
Most observers feel that this is something of a 50-50 fight that could swing either way.
Both men seem to have peaked recently, and this is a solid way for Showtime Championship Boxing to kick off its loaded first-quarter campaign in 2017.
And it'll give us a legitimate top dog at super middleweight for the first time since some guy named Andre Ward ruled the division.
Is Lara-Foreman PBC's Worst Main Event?
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Lara will defend his WBA Junior Middleweight Championship Friday night in Miami against former 154-pound titlist Yuri Foreman on a Premier Boxing Champions card on Spike TV.
It'd be a fool's errand to ask you to go out there and find anyone (perhaps outside the fighter's camps) who wanted to see this fight.
Lara is as technically gifted a fighter as you'll ever find. His pure boxing skill and defensive acumen are off the charts. But he has zero fan base, and that's because his style fits somewhere in between boring and mind-numbing.
Sure, some fans appreciate that level of skill—the objective of the game is to get hit and not hit back, after all—but it doesn't endear you to the people who keep the lights on with their dollars and attention. It doesn't create demand.
And Foreman, a solid fighter in his day but well past it and only sporadically active over the past several years, does not have the style or punching power to really make this one interesting. Not to mention that his recent opposition has done nothing to earn him even a WBA (which hands out titles like Halloween candy) title shot.
Beating up PBC is a common thing these days among fans and media, and, while some of the criticism is just unfair and built on agendas, that can't be said about this fight.
It's not very good, and it deserves the beating it's taking.
Will Pacquiao's Demands Kill a Crawford Fight?
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Pacquiao looks to be moving toward an April fight (possibly in Australia) against Australian contender Jeff Horn, per Richard Damerell of Sky Sports, but his financial demands could be killing the one major fight that many boxing fans would like to see for the Filipino icon.
Edward Chaykovsky of Boxing Scene reports that Pacquiao's team, led by senior advisor Michael Koncz, is sticking to its demand that the Pac Man receive a guaranteed $20 million for a potential fight with rising pound-for-pound sensation Crawford.
The original quotes from Koncz on Pacquiao's purse demands came from Nick Gionco of the Manila Bulletin.
Bob Arum, who promotes Pacquiao, doesn't seem thrilled with the idea of people dropping numbers and negotiating through the press. But that's an internal problem to be sorted out within the team. The wrath of Bob, after all, is legendary.
The problem for the fans is that Pacquiao's number, if he holds firm, seems to be a nonstarter.
The pay-per-view market has changed so dramatically in recent years (ever since the disaster of a fight between Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather) that it's hard (being generous) to see a scenario where Pacquiao can get that type of money for this fight.
In fact, it's hard to see him getting anything close to that for fighting anyone other than Mayweather, who remains retired.
And that could keep it from happening, much to the chagrin of boxing fans.
Has Canelo-Chavez Jr. Cooled Down?
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Canelo and Chavez Jr. have been locked in negotiations for what would be a significant all-Mexico super middleweight fight on HBO PPV later this year, but it seems that the talks have hit a stumbling block.
Chavez Jr., who is the son of the most famous Mexican boxing icon of all time, told Box Azteca (h/t Miguel Rivera of Boxing Scene) that Canelo's financial demands have put a wrench in talks.
"The negotiations are still going, but there has been no willingness on the part of another Mexican fighter, because he wants to get five times more [money] than us, which is something that I find unfair," Chavez Jr. said to Box Azteca.
"I accepted 165 [pounds], and everything that they asked of me I accepted. We agreed to be the one to take less money. Because that is something that's right to do, not them with their childish whims."
That doesn't sound too good if you're one of the people hoping that this fight has a realistic chance of coming off. There are more of those than you'd think, even if the fight fans want most is Canelo vs. Gennady Golovkin.
For all the (much of it deserved) criticism that Canelo has gotten and will get if it happens—especially after both he and his promoter have constantly claimed he's not yet a middleweight—this fight would present a great deal of intrigue.
If it doesn't fall apart over money, that is.
Can Chocolatito Turn Bad an Underrated Challenger?
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Chocolatito, boxing's P4P king, has landed his next fight.
Gonzalez will defend his WBC Super Flyweight Championship March 18 on the Golovkin-Daniel Jacobs HBO PPV card against former world champion (and big puncher) Srisaket Sor Rungvisai of Thailand, per Pablo Fletes of Boxing Scene.
That's not the fight most fans were probably hoping for—a rematch with Carlos Cuadras, who beat Rungvisai for the title in 2014 or a showdown with Naoya Inoue—but it's a good one and you shouldn't sleep on it or dismiss it.
Rungvisai is a tough dude.
He's won 40 of his last 41 fights (after starting his career 1-3-1) and has scored 38 knockouts. He hits hard and he's no walk in the park for anyone, including a guy of Chocolatito's standing.
You can expect to see him come forward a lot and try to make this fight into a brawl and a match of who can hit the target the hardest.
Gonzalez is still the heavy favorite, as he should be, but this is a better fight than many will be expecting, and it could wind up stealing the show.
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