Getting to feel like deja vu, isn’t it?
In this week’s edition of the hottest storylines in boxing, we give you the latest on the ludicrously long negotiations between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao for a May 2 superfight.
Are we closer? Is it real? Or are fans destined for yet another disappointment?
Next, we turn our sights to upcoming action.
Can Martin Murray do anything to trouble Gennady Golovkin on Saturday in Monte Carlo?
Why aren’t Danny Garcia and Lamont Peterson fighting for a title when they meet in April?
Does Orlando Salido vs. Rocky Martinez have the look of a sleeper Fight of the Year candidate?
All that and more.
Let’s get right to it.
How about a Super Bowl reference?
Will the Mayweather-Pacquiao negotiations end on an interception in the end zone? Or will the key players make the sensible call and just run it in to win the game?
That’s the basic equation we’re left with at this point. The ball is inside the 10-yard line, but we’ve been here before, only to see someone throw a boneheaded pick and leave fans in the lurch.
Gareth Davies of The Telegraph reported Saturday that a deal for the elusive fight has been reached, with Pacquiao already completing his contractual agreements and just awaiting Mayweather’s signature before the fight could be announced.
Speculation ran rampant that it could even come as early as the NBA’s All Star Game on Sunday—Mayweather is in NYC for the event—but that was before cold water, once again, was thrown on the situation by both Bob Arum, who heads Top Rank, and Stephen Espinoza, executive vice president of Showtime Sports.
Arum told the Las Vegas Review-Journal (h/t Edward Chaykovsky of BoxingScene.com): “I’m very optimistic. We’re waiting to hear from Floyd. But from everyone’s perspective, it needs to get resolved this week. You have to start planning things, and there’s a lot that has to be done.”
Espinoza was less optimistic, disputing the reports of a contract even existing, much less being signed: “Not sure what anyone is signing since no agreement has been finalized yet. An imaginary contract, maybe. Real one not finished yet. Sorry for telling the truth.”
This sort of back-and-forth banter between Arum and Espinoza, no friends of each other, is nothing new. Where does it leave us in terms of the truth?
Your guess is literally as good as mine.
Martin Murray is standing on the train tracks, and the express is about to come through.
The 32-year-old Brit is next in line to try to crack undefeated Kazakh bomber Golovkin’s undefeated streak and stranglehold on the future of boxing’s middleweight division.
Murray came close to upsetting that apple cart once, turning in a near-miss performance against then-champion Sergio Martinez in Argentina back in 2013. But Martinez isn’t even in the same stylistic ballpark as Golovkin.
Golovkin is a monster. He pressures and stalks his foes until he gets them into position to unleash his devastatingly effective power shots. He’s knocked out his last 18 foes and over 90 percent overall, leading many—including this writer—to anoint him as boxing’s next transcendent superstar.
He’s had a hard time securing notable—and by that we mean names that make mainstream fans excited—opponents, but that’s not his fault. Upper-level fighters just haven’t been in a hurry to face him, but Murray does represent his third consecutive opponent in the top 10 of the division.
To be sure, Murray will come to fight and give a game effort, but he’s simply outgunned. That’s the equation for virtually all fighters in the 160-pound division. They’re packing a peashooter, while Golovkin walks into the ring with a pair of atomic bombs in his gloves.
One shot in the right place and your chin implodes.
Game over.
Murray won’t get blown out in the way Marco Antonio Rubio or Daniel Geale did, but he won’t hear the final bell.
The GGG train will roll right through to the next station.
It was made official this week that unified junior welterweight champion Garcia will meet Peterson in a non-title, 143-pound catchweight bout on April 11 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
There is still a bit of confusion about the parameters of the bout. ESPN.com’s Dan Rafael initially reported it would take place over 10 rounds, but ESPN’s boxing schedule has since been updated to reflect a more traditional 12-round bout between the upper-level fighters.
Garcia and Peterson have been on a collision course since both men took down second-tier—or third or fourth—challengers on the same card last summer in Brooklyn.
Garcia, the unified junior welterweight champion, knocked out the horribly overmatched Rod Salka in a non-title fight, while Peterson successfully defended his 140-pound belt by stopping Edgar Santana. This fight will be the second consecutive non-title catchweight for Garcia, who has in the past openly flirted with the idea of moving to welterweight.
Peterson, via ESPN (h/t Will Esco of Bad Left Hook) says he isn’t sure why the fight will take place at 143 pounds.
“I’m not sure why, but it was brought to me at that weight so I agreed,” he said.
Garcia, via the same report, explained the rationale. “I’m slowly making my way up to welterweight,” he said.
That makes some sense, and this is still a significant and exciting fight that fans want to see. But Garcia hasn’t defended his championships at 140 pounds in over a year and seemingly has no time frame for doing so anytime soon.
And that raises the obvious question: If you haven’t defended your titles for an extended period of time and don’t plan on doing so likely ever again, why do you still have them?
Salido, a three-time featherweight and current junior lightweight champion, has a history of going to Puerto Rico and beating Puerto Rican fighters. He’ll return to hostile territory in April, per Rafael, defending his WBO 135-pound title against former world champion Roman “Rocky” Martinez.
The 34-year-old champion gave his career a huge boost with a brutal knockout of then-undefeated rising Puerto Ricanstar Juan Manuel Lopez in 2011, repeating the feat in similarly spectacular fashion a little less than a year later.
He dropped his featherweight title to Mikey Garcia early in 2013 before capturing a 135-pound belt in Bleacher Report’s2014 Fight of the Year against Terdsak Kokietgym. Salido was down three times in the fight, dropping his man four times on the way to ending festivities in Round 11.
Martinez, like Salido, dropped a world title to Garcia in 2013, and he’s only fought once since, knocking out non-factor Herbert Quartey in Round 2. He’s an all-action fighter who will find a willing accomplice in the rugged, swarming Salido.
BoxingNews24.com indicates that this fight will likely be televised as part of a small pay-per-view in the United States, but it could well be worth shelling out a couple of bucks.
Salido vs. Martinez could wind up being one of those fights that few people saw as it happened but everyone was talking about when it’s over.
The IBF Middleweight Championship seems to be cursed.
Jermain Taylor, who had no business even fighting for the strap given his legal, mental and injury problems, won the title from Sam Soliman—who was injured during the fight—in October. He was recently stripped by the sanctioning organization after the latest in a troubling series of incidents saw him brandish a gun and allegedly threaten to shoot a family at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade.
Hassan N’Dam, himself a former champion, was due to be Taylor’s mandatory challenger, and the IBF ordered a boutwith No. 2-ranked contender, and former multi-time champion, Felix Sturm for the now-vacant belt.
Sturm declined the opportunity.
Next up was British contender Billy Joe Saunders—the IBF’s No. 4 contender—but he also turned down the shot, perNick Parkinson of ESPN, electing to instead focus on the winner of Andy Lee’s WBO title defense against Peter Quillin.
Does anyone even want this belt?
Granted, we all know that Cotto is the lineal and WBC champion, and GGG is the division’s best fighter, but a belt still carries some weight, especially when it comes to landing a shot against the real champion.
It just doesn’t seem that anyone, other than N’Dam, even wants this thing.
The Hottest Boxing Storylines for the Week of February 15
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