There's only 1 man who deserves the next shot at Usyk: Joseph Parker
And tons more random thoughts: awful schedule management; who Pacquiao, Taylor should face; Top Rank/ESPN end; don't hate Haney; Shields-Ali a joke; dream fights; Tszyu, Russell, Ennis, Vargas; more
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In terms of what should be next for undisputed heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk after pulverizing Daniel Dubois and knocking him out for a second time, there is one man most deserving of a shot at the undisputed crown: WBO interim titlist, mandatory challenger and former WBO titleholder Joseph Parker. There is no legitimate argument for anyone else before him, especially since the WBO would strip Usyk if he does not fulfill the due mandatory, which would cost him undisputed status for a second time.
Parker is red-hot and active. He has won six fights in a row since 2023, including against three significant opponents in his last three fights — decisions over Deontay Wilder and Zhilei Zhang and a second-round destruction of Martin Bakole in February. Stop with the talk of a third Tyson Fury fight. Usyk already beat him twice in a row, fair and square, albeit in close fights. I am not opposed to the third fight, just opposed to it being next.
Usyk has fought the same three guys in his last six fights, beating Fury twice, Anthony Joshua twice and Dubois twice. It’s time for somebody else to get a shot. It’s time for new blood. Parker has more than earned his opportunity. For anyone trying to come up with somebody more deserving than Parker, who is well known to boxing fans, it is nothing more than ridiculous mental gymnastics.
I still marvel at the absurdity of boxing’s powers that be scheduling three significant fight cards on the same day — including two on pay-per-view!!!! — when there is a mostly barren schedule in the sport for the next few weeks and shows could have been spread out. But that is exactly what happened on July 19 when Queensberry Promotions put on the Usyk-Dubois rematch for the undisputed heavyweight title on DAZN PPV; PBC put on Manny Pacquiao’s return from a four-year retirement against WBC welterweight titlist Mario Barrios with an excellent undercard on Prime Video PPV a little while later; and that card was on at the exact same time that Matchroom Boxing put on a regular DAZN event topped by the Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez-Phumelele Cafu junior bantamweight unification fight. That was just dumb. It forced fans to pick and deprived each event of attention and business, especially with two PPVs on the same day.
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The Usyk-Dubois II undercard was terrible. An embarrassment for a pay-per-view.
With the end of Top Rank’s deal with ESPN after an eight-year partnership, a few thoughts, though I could go on for days:
Many have criticized Top Rank and promoter Bob Arum but I strongly believe they did an overall excellent job with the series. We got major fights (some that on other platforms probably would have been on PPV), plenty of good world title bouts, very few PPV fights, contender fights and we saw tons of prospects develop on the ESPN+ preliminaries. For example, we saw the entire careers of Xander Zayas and “Shu Shu” Carrington develop and then saw them win versions of world titles on Saturday’s final card.
With the conclusion of Saturday’s event, there’ll be no regularly scheduled boxing on linear TV in the U.S. for the first time essentially since the 1940s when TV became widely accessible. That is shameful and shows you how much the powers that be mismanaged the sport and marginalized it other than a few big events here and there. There is a price to pay for continually putting the biggest events behind one pay wall after another. It comes at a cost (no pun intended).
ESPN dumped Top Rank but it’s certainly not the only network to dump the sport because of its general disorganization and the constant headaches putting together the best bouts and the never-ending politics. HBO, Showtime, Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, FS1, USA, and various Spanish-language networks also were once heavily invested in boxing but found they ultimately did not get enough bang for their considerable bucks.
Pacquiao made it clear after his disputed draw with Barrios — most had Pacquiao winning — that he will fight again and probably later this year. I’m not very interested in seeing a rematch with Barrios that some have called for. If Pacquiao is going to fight on, there are better, more interesting fights out there, including against fellow PBC fighters. How about Tank Davis (if Davis is not in jail)? That would be a big event and Davis would not have to go up too much in weight from lightweight given Pacquiao is a small welterweight and could easily make a weight below 147 pounds. I’d even be interested in Pacquiao against WBA welterweight titlist Rolly Romero.
It’s a real shame that Davis’ rematch with Lamont Roach Jr., which was supposed to be on Aug.16 but was never formally announced, is dead for that date and appears dead period. Davis dragged his feet on the rematch after escaping with a gift draw in February and now is also mired in yet another domestic violence case. Forget about whether he will give Roach the rematch. I wonder when Davis will next fight anyone.
Rodriguez knocked out Cafu to unify titles with his next fight already set, a three-belt unification bout with Fernando Martinez on Nov. 22 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. On paper, that is an absolutely fantastic fight and the one I am looking forward to the most on a legitimately stacked DAZN card that also includes David Benavidez-Anthony Yarde, Brian Norman Jr.-Devin Haney, Abdullah Mason-Sam Noakes, and Subriel Matias-Dalton Smith.
Sure, Haney isn’t the most crowd-pleasing fighter but I don’t get all the hate and negativity aimed at him. All he does is fight top opponents. He’s been the undisputed lightweight champion, going on the road to Australia to accomplish it against George Kambosos and then going back for the rematch. He narrowly defeated Vasiliy Lomachenko in an excellent fight. He moved up in weight and routed Regis Prograis for a junior welterweight title in a dangerous fight. Yes, he got dropped three times by Ryan Garcia in an otherwise close fight that he lost but that became a no contest because Garcia was filled with PEDs. Then he routed former unified titleholder Jose Ramirez, granted in a horrible fight. Then he agreed to fight junior welterweight champion Teofimo Lopez but Lopez refused to sign after having agreed to all terms. What did Haney then do? He accepted a fight against WBO welterweight titlist Norman, who many view as a tougher assignment than Lopez. Haney deserves respect, not derision.
Between his very entertaining fighting style, power punching, famous bloodlines, style on the mic and good looks, Emiliano Vargas has serious star potential.
Boots Ennis is joining the ranks at junior middleweight but will he look to fight top opponents or skate by on soft touches? Given the news that his team has made an offer to Josh Kelly to be his first 154-pound opponent in October — an utterly meh fight — it doesn’t look good.
As of Tuesday, it has been two years since Terence Crawford pummeled and destroyed Errol Spence in a one-sided ninth-round knockout to become the undisputed welterweight champion. Maybe Spence will fight again someday but it sure doesn’t seem that way. And even if he does, in terms of ever being a factor again in the world title picture or pound-for-pound discussion, those days are gone forever and they’re never coming back.
If women’s undisputed junior welterweight champion Katie Taylor is going to fight on in the wake of her third win over Amanda Serrano, she really should give former undisputed champion (and current WBC interim titlist) Chantelle Cameron another opportunity. Cameron gave Taylor her only loss and Taylor gave Cameron her only defeat in their rematch. Both fights were sensational and exceptionally close. A rubber match makes sense and would fill any venue in the U.K. or Ireland.
Here’s a joke for you: Claressa Shields vs. Laila Ali. When Ali said during the Taylor-Serrano III show on Netflix, where she worked as a commentator, that for $15 million she would be willing to exit retirement to fight pound-for-pound No. 1 female and undisputed heavyweight champion Shields it stirred plenty of discussion, especially when Shields later proclaimed she had supposedly found backers willing to put up the money. There is, of course, always a sucker somewhere.
What cynical, pathetic fight. Spare me, please. Shields is the best female boxer on the planet and there’s nobody close at the moment. Unfortunately, she has absolutely no credible opposition to fight having moved up so much in weight. There are literally only 18 females in the world ranked at heavyweight by the four organizations combined and some overlap organizations. But fighting Ali is most certainly not the answer.
If Shields wants some semblance of competition she ought to return to her more natural super middleweight or middleweight to find a decent fight — WBO/IBF super middleweight titlist Shadasia Green, for example, would be quasi interesting — instead of trying to perpetrate a fraudulent Ali fight. Ali, the daughter of Muhammad Ali, is in the Hall of Fame and retired undefeated — in 2007. She is 47 and has been retired for 18 years. If Ali wants to fight again she should convince contemporary and fellow HOFer Ann Wolfe to come out of retirement and fight her after so blatantly ducking her when they were active instead of trolling for a nonsensical Shields fight.
Future Hall of Famers Nonito Donaire and Chocolatito Gonzalez are all-time greats near the end of their careers but both coming off wins and plan to fight again. They ought to fight each other. Donaire just won an interim bantamweight title and Gonzalez is a junior bantamweight who has toyed with moving up and, in fact, had his last fight just below the bantamweight limit.
The chatter about a possible Joshua vs. Jake Paul fight is wild. Joshua is no longer what he was when he was on top but even this version of AJ would absolutely crush Paul whenever he deiced to end it.
Three dream fights:
Pacquiao vs. Salvador Sanchez at featherweight
Lomachenko vs. Floyd Mayweather at junior lightweight
Michael Carbajal vs. Ricardo Lopez at junior flyweight
I was sad to hear about the death of Hall of Famer Dwight Muhammad Qawi, a fierce fighter, who in 1986 lost his cruiserweight title by split decision to a young Evander Holyfield, who won his first world title. It is one of the last great 15-rounders and an all-time epic battle that rates as one of the two best fights in cruiserweight history along with James Toney-Vassiliy Jirov.
Jack Catterall seems like an awfully nice guy and has good boxing ability but he’s just never in a good fight. His recent sleep-inducing technical decision over Harlem Eubank was just the latest example of his typical stinkeroos.
While Edgar Berlanga barked non-stop at Hamzah Sheeraz during the buildup to their bout he had no bite in the ring. Instead, it was Sheeraz who let his hands do the talking in a very impressive fifth-round destruction. That was a big-time win for Sheeraz in his super middleweight debut and an extremely debilitating loss for Berlanga.
All due respect to Tim Tszyu for his eagerness to fight all comers and for consistently making entertaining fighters. He is also a terrific guy to deal with from my point of view as a media member. But after falling to 1-3 in his last four bouts, including retiring on his stool after the seventh round in a second loss to WBC junior middleweight titlist Sebastian Fundora on July 19 and having been pulverized last fall challenging IBF titlist Bakhram Murtazaliev in three rounds, it does seem like his time at the time of the division is over. I hated writing that.
Gary Russell Jr. looked good in a dominating 10th-round knockout win when he returned from 3½ years out of the ring on the Pacquiao-Barros card. He will always be somebody I think of as having been a giant what if. He rarely fought when he held a featherweight title and when he did he did not face the best opposition. But at his best he had as much talent as a fighter could have. In my view he had the fastest set of hands I have ever seen — and that includes Roy Jones and Mayweather, both of whom I covered in their primes. It’s such a shame that Russell, now 37, pretty much wasted his prime when he could have been a perennial top 10 pound-for-pound guy and made boatloads of money.
Almost three weeks later and I’m still annoyed that light heavyweight contender Imam Khataev was on the wrong end of a split decision he deserved to win against David Morrell.
All significant fights should utilize VADA drug testing. End.
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Photos: Usyk: Leigh Dawney/Queensberry Promotions; Parker: Getty
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Good stuff, Dan. Two things:
Thing 1- The big November DAZN card with Bam (among the many others) is NOT a PPV, so rejoice freaks!
Thing 2- you owe your pal Mauricio an ass-tearing article on his handling of the Rodriguez drug fail. Calling it an “honest mistake” is just another in the unfathomably long list of stupid, nefarious, greedy and dangerous decisions he’s made, and while it’s no surprise that he’s siding with the Mexican fighter (always), ignoring the fact that Rodriguez may have irreparably altered the career of Yafai with his PED-fueled ass kicking. It’s atrocious behavior and should be called out by ALL media loud and repetitively.
If anyone with power gave a fuck about the sport cheats like Mauricio and Gilberto would be looking for jobs right now. My rant is over… I look forward to yours, Dan!
Dan mentioned watching the entire careers of certain guys on ESPN+ and it makes you appreciative of streaming services. Boxing is so accessible now, rarely is there a major fight without some type of streaming platform. I remember being grateful for undercards on Showtime Extreme. They would show highlights of undercard bouts on the main telecast of big time prospects that were featured. I can remember month-to-month based on the cards adding the Spanish language package to my cable bill because it had BeInSports espanol and I would watch Zanfer cards in Spanish. Rumor mill is top rank to TNT/HBOGO so hopefully this continues with Top rank on hbogo.