Ten rounds while pondering better uses of the $85 spent on Canelo-Charlo last weekend …
10. Where does Jermell Charlo turn now? After a lopsided decision defeat to Canelo Alvarez last week, Charlo made noise about returning to 154-pounds to face Terence Crawford, the undisputed 147-pound champion. But Charlo’s sluggish performance against Alvarez diminishes the marketability of a Crawford fight. At least for now. If Charlo stays at junior middleweight—no sure thing there, either—his best option could be to take on the winner of the fight between Tim Tszyu and Brian Mendoza, which will be for the title Charlo was stripped of before the Canelo fight. If Tszyu wins, Charlo should challenge him in Australia, where Tszyu is wildly popular.
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9. Interesting crossroads fight in Las Vegas this weekend where Gilberto Ramirez will meet Joe Smith in a cruiserweight title eliminator. Ramirez, an ex-168-pound champion, is coming off a decisive defeat to light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol last fall. Smith has been off since June 2022 after losing his 175-pound title in a second round knockout to Artur Beterbiev. Cruiserweight lacks star power, so the winner of this fight will likely earn a title shot in his next fight. The loser may not have much of a career left.
8. Credit to Ryan Garcia for accepting a fight with Oscar Duarte in December. While Duarte, like Garcia, will be moving up to 140-pounds for the fight, Duarte has won 11 straight since his first career defeat and enters the fight with 80% of his wins coming by knockout. Duarte isn’t on the championship level, but he’s a more formidable opponent than expected for Garcia, who is coming off a knockout loss to Gervonta Davis in April and will be fighting for the first time with Derrick James, who took over as Garcia’s head trainer after the loss to Davis.
7. Speaking of Garcia, I asked his promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, about the state of his relationship with his star. Garcia and De La Hoya have bickered publicly, with Garcia slapping Golden Boy Promotions with a demand letter last summer alleging violations of their promotional agreement and Golden Boy responding by filing a lawsuit to enforce its contract with him. The two sides are set to meet in mediation this month.
“It's all business,” De La Hoya said. “We're cordial, but it's all business. But like I said, you're as good as your last fight. Fighters, when they lose, fighters, when they get knocked out, they blame the world. Once they're on top, once they win, then everything is all fine and dandy. So, look, I understand it. I've been a fighter. I'm now on the other side. I am just here to make Ryan the most money. But more importantly, make sure that he becomes a legend and to become a legend, you take the big fights.”
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6. With Garcia eyeing a world title at 140 pounds, Golden Boy is looking to showcase one on his undercard. Last month, the WBA ordered Ohara Davies and Ismael Barroso to fight for the interim 140-pound title (Rolando Romero, who scored a questionable stoppage win over Barroso last May, is the full titleholder; he was granted a medical exception and has until March 20 to defend his belt). Golden Boy, which promotes Davies, is discussing a deal with Premier Boxing Champions officials to place Davies-Barroso on the Dec. 2 show.
5. With Showtime’s expected exit from boxing, Al Haymon has been exploring new broadcasting options for the PBC stable. PBC officials have had discussions with executives from Amazon, sources told Sports Illustrated. Amazon has emerged as a major player in live sports, cutting deals with the NFL and Premier League soccer in recent years. The streaming giant has drawn praise for its Thursday Night Football broadcasts and has the resources to become a major player in boxing.
4. Recently, De La Hoya has been urging rival promoters to work together. De La Hoya held a meeting with Top Rank’s Bob Arum, and on Thursday called for Eddie Hearn and Al Haymon to come to the table to make big fights.
Still, while De La Hoya is eyeing big cross promotional fights, he has struggled to put together matchups that can be made in-house. Jaime Munguia, a former 154-pound titleholder, is a good example. Munguia is 42-0 and has not faced any high-level opponents. That includes Edgar Berlanga, the Matchroom promoted super middleweight contender. Golden Boy and Matchroom discussed a Munguia-Berlanga showdown for later this year. Talks, however, ultimately fizzled.
“Because Berlanga doesn't want to fight him,” De La Hoya says. “That's the bottom line. I mean, Sergiy Derevyanchenko was a tough fight, a fight that was almost forced because nobody else wanted to fight Munguia. Either they were busy or they were waiting for title eliminators or whatever the excuse might be. But we want to fight Berlanga right now. Why not? Let's make it happen. I mean, they're under the same roof with networks. Let's make it happen. Let's do this. We want to fight [Jermall] Charlo. And that's part of my reason why I'm calling out all promoters. I mean, we must make these big fights happen. It's not on us, it's not on Munguia. It's a matter of time.”
I pointed out that for years, Munguia had the opportunity to face Demetrius Andrade—then a Matchroom promoted middleweight champion—and never showed any interest.
“The only fight that I can think of that he didn't want was Demetrius Andrade,” says De La Hoya. “That's the only fight I can think about that he didn't want. Other than that, he's willing to face anybody.”
3. Speaking of Andrade: Am I the only one that thinks Andrade beats David Benavidez? Showtime is planning a Benavidez-Andrade clash in November to headline a pay-per-view. I’ve been an unabashed Andrade supporter for years and I promise you, Benavidez is going to be confounded by Andrade’s slick boxing skills. There’s a reason no opponent has been able to come close to beating Andrade (32-0) and why no top fighters have shown any interest in sharing the ring with him. He didn’t look great in a rust-shaking return last January against Demond Nicholson—which doubled as his debut at super middleweight—but he still won a wide decision. I’ll call it right now: In Andrade-Benavidez, I’m taking Andrade by unanimous decision.
2. More De La Hoya, on his meeting with Arum:
“I called Bob to meet me in my office in LA to make big fights happen. That’s basically it. It’s always been pleasant to deal with Bob. Bob is Bob, and you have to know how to talk to him. But he’s all about business. And we sat down and we carved out a plan to make these big fights happen. And we did talk about Ryan Garcia. We did talk about Teofimo Lopez. We did talk about Shakur Stevenson fighting William Zepeda, possibly on the same card. We talked about everything, and what Bob wants to do now is just have fun and make big fights happen. That’s all he wants to do.”
