Tag: Danny Garcia

Good, bad, worse: Terence Crawford gave inspiring performance

Terence Crawford received more resistance than expected from Egidijus Kavaliauskas but responded like the champion he is.

GOOD

I’m sure there are people who believe Terence Crawford was exposed somehow in his title defense against Egidijus Kavaliauskas on Saturday night in New York. I don’t agree … at all. In fact, I think more of him now that I did before the fight.

So a good fighter (which is what Kavaliauskas is) landed some flush punches to Crawford’s face and body in the first half of the fight. So what? Fighters who take risks also take punches, even great fighters (which is what Crawford is). Crawford’s moments of vulnerability mean nothing to me.

And it’s not as if Crawford acted confused or disheartened when the clever Lithuanian had success. Instead, he got angry. He dug in, refusing to retreat, as if to say, “I’ll show you who the better man is,” and then did.

Crawford switched to an orthodox stance in the seventh round, which made it more difficult for Kavaliauskas to land his right. That was the turning point in the fight.

In the next two-plus rounds, Crawford, on fire with determination, put Kavaliauskas down three times – once in the seventh and two times in the ninth – and hurt him in the process. The referee saved the challenger from further punishment 44 seconds into Round 9.

Was it the most dominating performance ever? No. It was impressive, though. I loved Crawford’s reaction to Kavaliauskas’ success. I thought when it became clear that Crawford was trying to knockout his tormentor, “Those are the instincts of a champion.” And the way he finished off Kavaliauskas was breathtaking, both in its efficiency and thoroughness.

That’s what a great fighter does, battle fearlessly  through adversity and win in spectacular fashion.

 

BAD

Richard Commey fell into a desperate situation very quickly. Mikey Williams / Top Rank

I’m using the word “bad” here as something positive, as in Teofimo Lopez is a “bad” man.

The Honduran-American’s fight against lightweight titleholder Richard Commey on the Crawford-Kavaliauskas card was supposed to be a 50-50 proposition. Instead, it was a showcase for the next great star.

Lopez essentially ended the fight with a crushing right hand that put Commey down and left him discombobulated early in the second round. The Ghanian managed to get up but a vicious barrage of hard shots from Lopez ended the fight, giving him a major 135-pound title in his 15th fight.

That’s what you call a career-defining victory. And he’s only 22.

A star was born? No, a star was born 22 years ago. Lopez has unusual God-given gifts, which have been finely honed over the years. Add to that his power, his killer instinct, his poise and his ability to do a back flip and you get a truly special fighter.

And he’s just getting started.

Next up? Could be Vasiliy Lomachenko, which is playing with fire. All the momentum he has built could come to a sudden halt against the No. 1 fighter pound-for-pound. One thing, though: Lopez is naturally bigger than Lomachenko. Is that equalizer?

Should be interesting.

 

WORSE

Terence Crawford reiterated after his victory on Saturday that he’ll fight anyone, anytime. Let’s hope his top rivals were listening. Mikey Williams / Top Rank

I agree with those who say this: If Crawford wanted to fight the welterweights at Premier Boxing Champions, he probably shouldn’t have signed a long-term contract with Top Rank.

That said, I also agree with the thrust of Tim Bradley’s ringside diatribe against the PBC 147-pounders for refusing to cross promotional barriers and fight Crawford.

Like it or not, Crawford is the top welterweight and arguably the best fighter in the world. And fighters constantly say, “I want to fight the best.” Fighters also say regularly in so many words, “I want to give the fans the fights they want.” It couldn’t be more obvious that the fans want to see the PBC welterweights fight Crawford.

So why haven’t any of the them – Errol Spence, Shawn Porter, Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia, Manny Pacquiao, et al – taken the steps necessary to make it happen?

I can only come to two conclusions: One, they don’t want to fight the best. And, two, they really don’t care what the fans want. If they did, they would demand to fight Crawford. None of them have, not even Spence, the one fighter fans had been dying to see in the ring with Crawford before his car accident.

And it’s not like PBC and Top Rank are complete strangers. For example, the companies will work together on the Deontay Wilder (PBC)-Tyson Fury (Top Rank) rematch in February.

I understand the business of boxing. Promoters and managers are territorial. They want to keep their big fights – and the money they generate – in house if possible. To be sure, PBC and its welterweights aren’t breaking new ground.

It’s just a shame, from the standpoint of Crawford and the fans, that a fighter as good as he is can’t test himself against the best possible opponents because of boxing politics.

Terence Crawford and his cul-de-sac at welterweight

Whatever happens on Saturday night, Richard Commey and Teofimo Lopez have a future path. The same can’t be said for Terence Crawford.

NEW YORK – Whoever wins the lightweight title fight between champion Richard Commey and Teofimo Lopez on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden will have a lot more going on for him than just bragging rights or, in Lopez’s case, new hardware.

He’ll have a little something called momentum.

Commey-Lopez is not only the best on-paper matchup of the night, far exceeding the main event between welterweight titleholder Terence Crawford and Egidijus Kavaliauskas (we’ll get to that later). The winner could also go on to face Vasiliy Lomachenko in a unification of three of the four major lightweight belts next year. With apologies to newly minted lightweight titleholder Devin Haney, whose network allegiances make him a non-starter in this discussion, that is as about as good as it can get today in a sport beset by shoddy matchmaking and warring tribalism.

In other words, Commey-Lopez isn’t your typical boxing one-off that takes place in isolation, subject to a short half-life and a few forgettable column inches. No, its precise appeal is that it is freighted with significance beyond the 36 minutes (likely less) of combat that will unfold in the ring on Saturday night. And that’s a breath of fresh air, considering that the value of certain titleholders today are inseparable from the presumed significance of the particular alphabet-soup trinket they hold. One thinks immediately of WBO super middleweight titleholder Billy Joe Saunders and the WBO middleweight titleholder Demetrius Andrade, both of whom have fought virtually nobody of note to merit the high perch they occupy in their respective divisions.

Commey-Lopez is the latest brick laid down by promoter Top Rank toward what figures to be the edifice that will one day house the lightweight division’s most accomplished fighter. And the company did it by dutifully adding the most consequential 135-pounders, such as Ray Beltran, to their stable. They did it by scooping up Lopez from the 2016 Olympics, by getting in touch with Commey’s promoter Lou DiBella last year, by having Lomachenko outslug the likes of Pedraza and Luke Campbell (for a vacant title) earlier this year.

Commey-Lopez: Call it the big picture approach.

Alas, the same can’t be said for the fight that follows on Saturday night. Indeed, there is an air of banality surrounding titleholder Terence Crawford’s fight against undefeated Lithuanian contender Egidijus Kavaliauskas.

Even the fight’s usual carnival barkers seem to have caught on to this and have adjusted their brand of ballyhoo accordingly. Instead of selling Crawford-Kavaliauskas as a matchup of supreme consequence, they have sought to paint it as a rare opportunity to catch one of the great improvisers in the sport in action. During an ESPN segment, Teddy Atlas compared Crawford’s ring “instincts” to Jimi Hendrix riffing on the guitar, Bobby Fischer overlooking a chess board, and Louis Armstrong blowing the trumpet. “(Crawford) creates it as he does it,” Atlas said. “He’s got the greatest instincts I’ve ever seen.” Sitting beside Atlas, Max Kellerman, no stranger to rhetorical overkill himself, guffawed upon hearing that comment.

Actually, from a contemporary standpoint, Atlas isn’t entirely wrong. Few fighters have shown themselves to be as versatile and creative in the ring as Crawford. At some point, however, such claims must be born out in the ring against the very best.

Unfortunately, Crawford is Exhibit A in the ramifications wrought by the sport’s frustrating political divide. Unlike its lightweight stable, Top Rank simply does not have the key players at welterweight to fulfill on the promise of a generational talent like Crawford. Unlike Commey-Lopez, Crawford-Kavaliauskas doesn’t lead anywhere. There is no conceivable Lomachenko for Crawford waiting in the wings. Crawford’s best possible opponents – Errol Spence, Manny Pacquiao, Shawn Porter, Danny Garcia and Keith Thurman – are all aligned with Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions, which understandably prefers to do their own round robin of fights. Moreover, whatever hope there was that the two sides could come together to stage a Crawford-Spence bout appears to have gone out the window in the wake of Spence’s harrowing car accident in October. At the very least, that fight is on the back-burner.

Crawford’s seemingly hamstrung future has had the effect of completely whitewashing his opponent, Kavaliauskas, a two-time Olympian who is known to crack with both hands. Kavaliauskas is no schlub, but his last fight, a draw against a distinctly mediocre Ray Robinson, did much to lower his stock. But Crawford, to be sure, is simply graded on a different scale. It is difficult to imagine what Kavaliauskas could bring to the ring that will trouble Crawford.

A saving grace for Crawford may be the current crop of elite junior welterweights who will all likely move up to 147 at some point, including Top Rank stablemate Jose Ramirez, Josh Taylor and Regis Prograis. But that development might take a year or more, which is an eternity for a fighter who is already 32 years old. 

The difference with Hendrix and Armstrong? They were soloists whose virtuosities did not necessarily rely on anyone else. In boxing, they call that shadowboxing.

Danny Garcia has to settle for fight against Ivan Redkach on Jan. 25

Danny Garcia was expected to fight Errol Spence or possibly Manny Pacquiao but instead will face Ivan Redkach on Jan. 25.

Danny Garcia had been scheduled to face Errol Spence on Jan. 25 but that fight was scraped after Spence’s horrific car accident in October. He has also been rumored to be a candidate to face Manny Pacquiao.

Instead, the former two-division titleholder will face Ivan Redkach on Jan. 25 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Oh well, you gotta keep busy.

Garcia (35-2, 21 KOs) last fought in April, when he stopped Adrian Granados in seven rounds in April. That followed a frustrating year-and-a-half period in which he went 1-2, losing competitive decisions to Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter.

The Redkach fight is obviously meant to keep him in position for a big fight whenever – and against whomever – something comes together.

Garcia was interviewed during the Jermall Charlo-Dennis Hogan card on Showtime.

“First of all, thank God Spence is doing good,” he said. “I hear that he’s recovering well. I was really looking forward to fighting him but maybe he could be next after January 25. Pac-Man (Manny Pacquiao) or Spence, that’s who we want. 2020 is going to be a big year for me.”

Redkach (23-4-1, 18 KOs) is coming off arguably the highest-profile win of his career, a sixth-round knockout of an faded Devon Alexander in June.

The Los Angeles-based Ukrainian has lost his biggest fights and is 5-4-1 in his last 10 fights, although he has won three straight going into the Garcia fight.

Mikey Garcia vs. Jessie Vargas? A few thoughts on that concept

Does talk of a fight between Mikey Garcia and Jessie Vargas on DAZN mean Manny Pacquiao plans to fight Danny Garcia?

A welterweight fight between Mikey Garcia and Jessie Vargas for the first quarter of next year has been discussed, according to The Athletic. The fight would be streamed on DAZN.

Promoter Eddie Hearn, who works with DAZN, has been courting Garcia for some time in hopes of signing him to a multi-fight deal, The Athletic reported. If he’s successful, a meeting with Vargas could kick off the relationship.

Two takeaways from that report:

One, Garcia told me a few years ago that he had no interest in signing a long-term deal with anyone after his relationship with then-promoter Bob Arum soured. Garcia sat out 2½ years waiting for his contract with Arum to end and become a free agent.

Of course, things change. The guaranteed money might be too tempting to resist now for whatever reason. We’ll see.

Two, Garcia has been mentioned as a possible opponent for Manny Pacquiao. I’m guessing that Pacquiao has decided to keep it in the PBC family and fight the other Garcia, Danny, a legitimate 147-pounder who might be seen as a more legitimate threat than Mikey. Mikey Garcia is coming off a one-sided loss to Errol Spence.

Again, we’ll see.

Floyd Mayweather is a wildcard. If he’s serious about a comeback, a rematch with Pacquiao would be a bonanza for both fighters. Pacquiao certainly would jump at the opportunity.

Would Mayweather, 42, really risk his perfect record? Doubtful. Exhibitions or another “fight” against an MMA star, maybe; a sanctioned boxing match, no.

That said, “Money” loves money. Anything is possible.

Fox Exec says network will have ‘best of the best,’ own ‘PBC belts’

Bill Wanger, executive vice president of programming for Fox Sports, appeared on the Chris Mannix podcast last week to discuss boxing.

Al Haymon may stay tight-lipped when it comes to the media, but Bill Wanger apparently has no such qualms.

Wanger, the executive vice president of programming at Fox Sports, appeared on the Chris Mannix boxing podcast last week and, well, he had a few interesting things to say. Wanger expounded on everything from the network’s multi-year deal with Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions to his thoughts on the boxing landscape at large.

Here are some snippets.

On sharing fighters with Showtime

Given that longtime cable broadcaster Showtime also has a multi-year deal with the PBC, one of the biggest questions in the past year was how Haymon went about apportioning his roster to satisfy the needs of both networks. When Mannix brought up this specific point, Wanger was blunt about Fox having the “premier package.”

“Our deal with the PBC is to be in the premier position and to have the premier package,” Wanger said. “So a lot of who takes what between Fox and Showtime is already taken care of in the contractual process. … We have a contract with the PBC with a certain number of fights to be in the premier position. At the end of the day, that’s what we’re going to have. We’re not too worried about that.”

When Mannix asked Wanger to clarify what he meant by “premier,” Wanger responded, “At the end of the day, we get the best fights and the top stars. Showtime will have what they’re going to have. But Fox will have the best of the best.”

On making fights with rival networks and promoters

Another topic was boxing’s fragmented business. Mannix suggested the possibility of more cross-promotional events, in which fighters would appear  on rival networks. Wanger doesn’t see that as a priority for the network, citing PBC’s vast roster as a sign of its “self-sufficiency.”

“The PBC and Fox have 99 percent of the top fighters,” Wanger said. “Yes, there are a few on the other platforms, but we’re totally self-sufficient. Those guys are actually having difficulty making the fights they need for their fighters, whether its Terence Crawford or Canelo (Alvarez) and so on and so forth.”

Wanger would not confirm or deny a reported joint pay-per-view deal between Fox and ESPN to showcase the projected rematch of Deontay Wilder vs. Tyson Fury in 2020, but he made it clear that each network has their own corporate agenda to adhere to. 

“I think that in this new dynamic, this new world of DAZN in the business and ESPN in the business and PBC in the business with Fox and Showtime, yeah there is rooting interest (for certain fighters and fights), quite selfishly,” he said.

On the likelihood of an Errol Spence-Terence Crawford showdown

Wanger poured cold water over a potential Errol Spence-Terence Crawford welterweight title-unification fight. He made it clear that Spence has no reason to rush into a fight with Crawford, not when he has other options at his disposal within the PBC roster, including Danny Garcia, Keith Thurman, and Manny Pacquiao.

“With regards to Errol, the PBC has a stacked welterweight division and there are plenty of fights that Errol can have well before he needs to fight Terence Crawford,” Wanger said. “And again if Errol and his team have a desire to fight Terence Crawford, a deal can be made.

“Errol’s gotta take care of business inside the PBC family, and … once he does that (and) the time is right and he wants to fight Terence Crawford, they’ll make the fight.”

On PBC creating their own title belts

Mannix took Wanger to task for Fox’s refusal to recognize WBO welterweight titleholder Crawford on graphics depicting the top titleholders in the division. Wanger offered a somewhat circular rationale, stating that they feel the WBA, WBC, and IBF belts are “the most important belts” because they’re “the ones that have traditionally been around the longest (and) are the ones we will recognize.” Mannix mentioned the fact that Fox leaves out the WBO but recognizes a secondary title from the WBA, at which point Wanger dropped this nugget:

“You know what we’re going to do with the PBC, and we’re on our way to do this … as things fall in the place. We are going to have a PBC belt and a PBC champion, lets say of the heavyweight division. So play this out, Andy Ruiz (a PBC fighter) beats Anthony Joshua again and eventually you have Andy Ruiz and Deontay Wilder fighting for the PBC heavyweight title. You could do that potentially with the welterweights, you could do that at 154 pounds, you could do that at 168 pounds.”

Wanger did not clarify whether this meant that the PBC would no longer collaborate with the three other sanctioning bodies. In any case, it’s clear that Wanger believes that insofar as the heavyweight (on the condition that Ruiz beats Joshua), welterweight, junior middleweight and supper middleweight divisions are concerned, there is no reason for the PBC to branch out to make fights.

On Jermall Charlo fighting potentially on a different platform.

The PBC doesn’t have depth in the middleweight division. When Mannix pointed out that most of the top 160-pound fighters are on DAZN, which has left WBC titleholder Jermall Charlo out of the mix, Wanger hinted that you may see Charlo hopping over to another network for the time being.

“Yeah, Al’s taking care of Jermall and putting him on a path where he might not be on our platforms for the next few fights, but he’ll come back,” he said.

Manny Pacquiao could be back in the ring ‘in March, April’: report

Manny Pacquiao said he could fight again this Spring, with many possible opponents.

Manny Pacquiao hopes to return to the ring early next year during a break from his duties as a Filipino senator.

Pacquiao told the Manila Bulletin Sunday that “he can fight in March, April.’’

Pacquiao’s hopes for a spring bout re-ignited speculation about his opponent. In a political season, the senator, who will be 41 on December 17, has more aspiring opponents than he might have running mates or rival candidates in his oft-rumored plans for a run at the Filipino presidency.

The list appears to be led by Danny Garcia and Mikey Garcia. Danny Garcia had been in line to fight Errol Spence Jr. after Spence’s decision over Shawn Porter on September 28 in Los Angeles. But it’s not clear what’s next for Spence after he was thrown from his Ferrari in a scary crash in Dallas on Oct. 10.

Meanwhile, Mikey Garcia has not fought since jumping up in weight and losing a one-sided decision to Spence in Dallas on March 16.

Not on the list – not yet, anyway – is Keith Thurman, who lost a split decision to Pacquiao for a welterweight belt on July 20 in Las Vegas.

Thurman disclosed in mid-September that he underwent surgery on his left hand after the bout. Pain in the hand bothered him throughout the fight, he said. The surgery was a bone fusion. He said he would not be able to fight until next year.

Thurman, who battled back from a first-round knockdown, turned the next 11 rounds into a back-and-forth battle that ended with Pacquiao winning 115-113, 115-113 and 113-114. It was a heck of a fight.

“I would love the rematch,’’ Thurman said then.

If the hand heals in time for March or April, Thurman figures to say much the same thing as speculation mounts about who’s next for Pacquiao.

Also, not on the list is Terence Crawford, perhaps the best welterweight on the planet. But that’s not exactly a surprise. Crawford is a Top Rank fighter, Pacquaio is a Premier Boxing Champions fighter and – blah, blah, blah – never the twain shall meet.