Hey boxing, where are the big fights? Certainly not scheduled
And plenty of more random thoughts: Ngannou as a boxer?; Creed vs. Lang; Zzzzzzz: Ajagba-Shaw card; what the heck is Don King doing?; booo as Ramirez picks Commey instead of Prograis title fight
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A whole bunch of boxing random thoughts…
So far the schedule for early 2023 is extremely weak. There is not a single legitimately big fight officially signed. It’s like a continuation of the overall poor 2022, especially the miserable fourth quarter.
Hopefully, however, some of the big fights that are in the works and expected to happen will actually be finalized.
I am hopeful for Tyson Fury-Oleksandr Usyk for the undisputed title in the spring, which is on course but not signed and has no site.
Same goes for the fight between undisputed lightweight champion Devin Haney and former unified titlist Vasiliy Lomachenko, which is ticketed for May and another very appealing bout.
I too am hopeful that the fight between Gervonta Davis and Ryan Garcia — for which terms have been agreed to — is actually signed.
Davis made it safely through his interim bout with a knockout win of Hector Luis Garcia on Jan. 7 and Ryan Garcia opted not to have an interim fight. Once Davis’ fight was over the big fight was supposed to be finalized for April 15 in Las Vegas.
The sides have emails/deal memos outlining the basic agreement — when, where, financial parameters, etc… — and now, finally, there is an official contract to go through.
Garcia promoter Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy tweeted on Saturday night that had not yet received a contract from PBC for the bout so that their side can go over everything, make whatever language tweaks need to be made and get the damn thing signed.
He threatened to walk away from the fight if he didn’t have the paperwork on Monday, which he did not get, but he didn’t walk because if he tried to Garcia probably would do the same on him, giving us a Canelo 2.0 situation between Garcia and Golden Boy.
De La Hoya’s empty threat was an ill-conceived arbitrary and fake deadline that came and went but finally Golden Boy received the paperwork on Tuesday evening. That’s an important step.