Random thoughts: Davis a star on the rise; best summer fights; Donaire fearless
Suggestion for Showtime and much more
My random boxing thoughts…
There’s no doubt Gervonta “Tank” Davis is a star. He’s drawing big crowds fight in and fight out in various cities, his Showtime PPV numbers are growing and, most important, he can really fight and in a very fan friendly style. I thought he looked superb at junior welterweight in his recent 11th-round knockout of Mario Barrios in an exciting fight. That said, I do hope Davis, who is small for junior welterweight, returns to the lightweight division, where there are some very big fights for him — Ryan Garcia, Teofimo Lopez and Devin Haney, to name the three biggest — if rival promoters can play nicely. It would be good to see him have a signature fight at 135 pounds before making the move for good to 140 pounds.
There are several good fights on the schedule for the rest of the summer but the two I am looking forward to the most are the welterweight title fight between Manny Pacquiao and Errol Spence Jr., who meet Aug. 21 on Fox PPV, and Jermell Charlo against Brian Castano, who meet for the undisputed junior middleweight title on Showtime on July 17.
I saw some Twitter idiots suggest that Nonito Donaire was afraid to face John Riel Casimero and that is why he withdrew from their Aug. 14 bantamweight title unification fight. Are you kidding me? Donaire, a cinch first-ballot Hall of Famer, has fought a who’s who for the past 20 years from flyweight to featherweight and never ducked anyone. He’s not about to start with Casimero. Donaire isn’t afraid of anyone. He fought Naoya Inoue in Japan for crying out loud! Hopefully, Inoue and Donaire will simply move on to a rematch of the 2019 fight of the year. It is by far the biggest fight in the bantamweight division and one of the best fights in the sport.
With love and respect to my friends at Showtime, please, please, please stop calling Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California, the “Punch Bowl.” That is not its nickname. It is, and forever will be, the “War Grounds.”
I have no idea if 20-year-old middleweight Nico Ali Walsh is going to be a good pro fighter but it’s going to be a lot of fun following the progress of Muhammad Ali’s grandson. Just imagine how big he’ll be if he actually can fight?
After junior lightweight Chris Colbert outpointed Tugstsogt Nyambayar in an interim title defense on Saturday he said he would next like to face four-division titlist Leo Santa Cruz. While I doubt Santa Cruz will have any interest in that match, I would like to see it. Santa Cruz says he still wants to fight featherweight titlist Gary Russell Jr., who has rendered himself irrelevant by fighting once a year against mostly weak opposition. At one point, I was very interested in Santa Cruz-Russell but no longer. That fight’s sell-by date has expired.
I’ve seen lightweight contender Michel Rivera fight a few times, including his impressive eighth-round knockout of Jon Fernandez on Showtime this past Saturday. Rivera is a crowd-pleasing fighter with talent and charisma who adds depth to an already outstanding division. I’m looking forward to seeing more of him. And, yes, he has an uncanny resemblance to a young Muhammad Ali.
Happy to see that Top Rank and PBC have put together an excellent pay-per-view undercard for Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder III on July 24. I dig that the three other televised fights are also in the heavyweight division.
Paging GGG.
The fight is not official yet — Golden Boy is waiting for DAZN to formally sign off on it — but I think the match between rising welterweight contender Vergil Ortiz Jr. and former world title challenger “Mean Machine” Egidijus Kavaliauskas, which is planned for Aug. 14 in Frisco, Texas, is a very good fight. It should be Ortiz’s toughest fight so far. Kavaliauskas’ only loss came by stoppage to titleholder Terence Crawford in a fight in which Kavaliauskas was robbed of a knockdown on a missed call by the referee.
I was a Lehlo Ledwaba fan during his heyday in the late 1990s/early 2000s. I advocated for him to get a chance on American TV (which he eventually did on HBO). I had a chance to meet him during fight week in Las Vegas in 2001 when he was defending his junior featherweight title against late-replacement Manny Pacquiao, who was fairly obscure at the time. Ledwaba was a gentleman and had a good run as a top 122-pounder. He died last week from Covid-19 in his native South Africa. RIP.
I was re-watching the recent cruiserweight fight between Brandon Glanton and Efe Apochi. What a great fight.
After his excellent sixth-round knockout of Jeison Rosario, junior middleweight Erickson Lubin is most definitely ready to fight a world title again.
After watching Janibek Alimkhanuly take apart Rob Brant in utterly dominating fashion I have no doubt that Alimkhanuly would be competitive with any middleweight in the world.
Even a few weeks later it is still an absolute embarrassment that Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., who missed weight as usual, lost to MMA legend Anderson Silva in a boxing match.
Davis photo: Sean Michael Ham/Mayweather Promotions
Good ramble about the rumble's........... Who could be so stupid as to question Donaire in any way? Glad I do not visit that part of boxing talk. Rivera and some others Noynay could turn some heads in more ways then just fans and fighters too, great part of boxing to watch them develop even when they reach there peak, Davis if he stays off the streets for an extended period of time and keeps moving up the competition but not the weight classes yep will be nice to find out where the holes are in his game, just have to say some of the best fighters are the one's no one is talking about then bam they show and show up........like I said nice ramble.
PAGING... BUD CRAWFORD 📟