Two the biggest fights this year will be Devin Haney versus Ryan Garcia and Saul Alvarez against Jaime Munguia. I was excited to hear that Amazon Prime would begin hosting pay-per-view events because I trust their platform and, being Amazon, I thought they might have a more reasonable price tag than their competitors. I’m not totally shocked to find out that this was only wishful thinking, but I am surprised that Amazon wants to debut the service with such low-quality products (despite the fact that these fights will feature three of the biggest names in boxing).
I’m not diminishing the collected talent–even Munguia is a physically impressive athlete with a lot of technical potential and an immaculate record. Canelo is still probably my favorite active fighter, so I’m always interested in seeing him matched well, but so many of his recent fights have been pointless in terms of legacy: Billy Joe Saunders and Caleb Plant were basically stay busy fights against big guys, Bivol was ill-advised, Golovkin (the third time) was like underlining an exclamation point, and I’m gonna go out on a limb and say both Ryder and Charlo were big wastes of time. There’s no way I’m paying 70 dollars to watch him work over a young guy with an inflated record just because they’re both Mexican. Heritage aside, you could make the case that both Edgar Berlanga and, even more so, David Benavidez, are both better opponents–in terms of marketability and legacy, even entertainment value. Once again, if Canelo wins, nothing changes, if he loses, we’re all just disappointed in Canelo.
Then there’s Haney-Garcia, and unless mental illness somehow significantly enhances Garcia’s performance, we all know how that fight will go. Garcia is going to quit in the ring again, or lose a decision, if it lasts that long. Admittedly, I think Haney is a more realistic challenge for Garcia than Davis was, but given how Haney endured against Lomachenko, the result here won’t likely be very different. The price tag for this one isn’t really inappropriate considering the importance of the fight in determining who makes money in the division, but I think knowledgeable fans see that neither one of them is an elite-level fighter. Haney wilted against Lomachenko and Garcia will never be reliable, no matter well how he bounces back from the next-level lunacy he’s been spouting on social media (not to mention the alarming complacency he displayed in his loss to Davis).
After these two money grabs, things get more interesting with a pair of competitive, if predictable fights: May 6 is Inoue-Nery and May 11th is Lomachenko-Kambosos. On May 18th, if there are no more delays, Fury will finally fight Usyk, which is a huge fight that I’ve lost my passion for due to both fighters’ recent performances. Finally, on June 1st, we’ll see a fight that should put two fighters in their rightful places among the best in boxing, when Dmitry Bivol takes on Artur Beterbiev. None of those fights is as important on paper as Fury-Usyk, but they’re all almost guaranteed to be entertaining.
GentlemanJeff
Thoughts on Boxing 