All hail King Ryan for his insistence to fight Gervonta Davis when all signs pointed to another failed round of talks between the bright young stars of boxing. The politics of boxing means even the flimsiest of reasons could be used to call off a big bout just as much as the big reasons.
On the flimsy side of boxing negotiations, Sergio Martinez’s super welterweight championship bout against Miguel Cotto almost fell through over which fighter’s name came first on the artwork promoting the fight.
Cotto’s camp rightly argued he was on the “A-side” for the fight since he had a bigger fan base and drew more eye balls to every fight he was involved in more than the champion Martinez. The artwork originally had Martinez v Cotto but after much protestation and threats to pull out of the fight, the artwork was redesigned to Cotto v Martinez.
On a more serious side, Ryan Garcia accepted a rehydration clause and the Golden Boy Promotions boxer also accepted to fight under the “PBC’ banner.
Had it not been for Garcia’s adamant stance to make the fight, disagreements over purse percentages and the egos of former in-ring rivals Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jnr. who represent Garcia and Davis respectively, would have gotten in the way of negotiations just as it had so many times before.
It is so clear the De La Hoya and Golden Boy camp wasn’t too fond of Garcia’s decision to do whatever it took to fight Davis considering the grand fallout between Garcia and the group in the aftermath of Garcia’s knockout loss.
Aside a heated verbal exchange between De La Hoya and Garcia on social media, Golden Boy Promotions has gone on to sue Garcia over the latter’s attempt to terminate his contract. However, Garcia’s role in making the Davis fight, playing a lead figure in hyping it up and delivering in the ring opened the door for other big fights fans have yearned for similar fights to be made.
Since Garcia lost for the first time in his professional career, Devin Haney has fought and beaten Vasiliy Lomachenko, Naoya Inuoe has fought and beaten Stephen Fulton and Caleb Plant fought but lost decisively to David Benavidez Jnr.
Saul Canelo Alvarez is pegged to fight Jermell Charlo later in September while heavyweight division bouts between Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte and Oleksandr Usyk and Daniel Dubois takes place on August 12 and August 26 respectively while Chris Eubank Jnr. fights Liam Smith in September.
Great fights are coming this year and it is possible Canelo fights Benavidez in December- even if there is that aberration of a contest between UFC’s Francis Ngannou and heavyweight champion Tyson Fury.
Later this weekend, perhaps the biggest of them all takes place in Las Vegas. Terence Crawford taking on Errol “Big Fish” Spence Jnr. is as big as it gets. The undefeated pugilists finally get to square off in the ring after four years of back and forth, and lots of all bark but no bite.
Boxing politics played a key role in this “delayed” fight since Crawford was on the Top Rank side of the divide with Bob Arum while Spence resides in the PBC camp. Thankfully before this bout dragged into irrelevance, time was the saving grace as Crawford’s contract run out and the man nicknamed Bud became a free agent and eligible to negotiate a deal as he pleases.
Spence holds the WBA, IBF and WBC welterweight titles after beating Yordenis Ugas and Kell Brook to capture both belts while Crawford holds the WBO title. The July 29 bout is very close to call but even in the closest of bouts, there is still a favourite to pick and in this case, it is Terence “Bud” Crawford.
For starters, Crawford is the more cerebral of the fighters whose focus in bouts is too laser sharp, it sometimes defies logic and reality. Crawford stays locked in all the time once the bell goes and until the bout ends, his stoic figure doesn’t change.
On the flip side, Spence has shown consistently he loses focus and drifts in bouts that have led to scary moments that could have put a blemish on his clean record. Against Ugas, Spence lost his mouth piece and lost his focus in the process while trying to check if his teeth had been knocked out.
For context, Spence’s dentals had suffered damage when Errol was involved in a near death car accident a couple of years back. Ugas rocked Spence and should have delivered a flurry of punches to score a knockdown or possibly a knockout but he didn’t and that was Spence’s escape en route to score a 10th round technical knockout.
Spence’s trainer Derrick James mentioned it as an area they need to work and that’s good but James has made such comments during previous fights and that is a source of worrying coming up against an efficient and ruthless fighter in Crawford.
Experience counts for a lot in such a close but elite fight and Crawford holds the advantage in this regard as the guy with 39 wins in all 39 bouts he has been involved in. On the flip side, Spence has won all 28 professional bouts he has been involved in and that is quite extensive but he is inexperienced in the post-accident part of his career.
Since recovering from the serious accident, the Dallas native has fought just two times with one coming against Mikey Garcia who had just moved up in weight class and struggled to find his footing in the contest. His other fight was against Yordenis Ugas who doesn’t have an established jab.
For Crawford, who thrives on hunting weaknesses and exploiting them, this is an issue his game plan will address while targeting Spence’s right eye that was operated on two years ago.
Crawford’s ability to switch stances and fight his way to victory in a wide range of ways puts him ahead of Spence at least on paper. Southpaw Spence pummels his opponents’ body on the inside and takes advantage of them over compensating for this by connecting on clinical upper cuts and overhand left punches.
Omaha native Crawford wins bouts off the orthodox and south paw stances against pressure fighters, rangy fighters, speedy fighters and doing so fighting from range, inside and mid-range and landing counter punches, throwing a flurry of punches and scheming on the inside.
For Spence, beating opponents involves chopping them down just the way Derrick James has promised his man will do to beat Crawford this weekend.
Spence’s best route to win this bout is by making an aggressive start to the fight while Crawford who is usually a slow starter, gathers information to use later in the fight. Forcing Crawford to not settle into his groove and forcing him to fast track his information gathering inside the ring is what Spence needs to do to get a leg up early on and manage the fight through to score a win.