If you are the welterweight champion of the world and perceived as among the best pound-for-pound boxers on the planet, shouldn’t you start fighting some welterweights?
That thought came to mind last week after promoter Bob Arum offered $1 million to newly crowned WBO junior welterweight champion Chris Algieri to face Manny Pacquiao at the Venetian in Macau, China, on Nov. 22. It would be a good payday and a great opportunity for Algieri, who until he upset Ruslan Provodnikov on June 14 was not mentioned on any list of ‘A’ fighters. He might prove to be that, and beating Pacquiao would be the opportunity to do so, but the larger question: Why is the welterweight champion continually fighting junior welterweights and even former lightweight champions and getting away with it?
With the exception of light-punching Timothy Bradley, one has to go back more three years to find Pacquiao in the ring with a true welterweight, and even then it was fading Shane Mosley, who was nearly 40 and in the midst of a 3-5-1 finish to his career.
Even Bradley was a blown-up junior welterweight champion with only one knockout in the previous five years when he first faced Pacquiao (and was awarded a controversial split decision). He was sandwiched between Pacquiao twice facing his old nemesis, Juan Manuel Marquez, who is at best a junior welterweight despite winning the 147-pound title by knocking Pacquiao out cold in their fourth meeting.
When Pacquiao first faced Marquez, the latter was campaigning as a junior welterweight, and after he lost a majority decision (that he actually should have won), he immediately returned to 140. After losing to Bradley, Pacquiao again faced Marquez and was stopped. One fight later, Marquez lost to Bradley and returned to the more comfortable junior welterweight division again with a record of 1-2 in 147-pound fights.
Having lost two straight (unless you believe as I do that he also lost his last two meetings with Marquez), Pacquiao’s handlers decided to take no chances and match him with an ex-lightweight champion in Brandon Rios. Rios by then was the WBO junior welterweight champion (do we see a trend here?), but he was 1-1 vs. journeyman Mike Alvarado at 140 and his face-first style was perfect for Pacquiao.
After easily outpointing Rios, Pacquiao then faced Bradley in a rematch, outpointing a now full-fledged welterweight but one who still hit like a lightweight. Now Arum wants to put him in with Algieri, who is 20-0 but was without a recognizable opponent until Provodnikov. More important to Pacquiao’s handlers, Algieri is a classic defensive boxer with only eight stoppages to his credit and truly is a junior welterweight, not a welterweight. Do we see another trend here?
Pacquiao not only has faced a parade of undersized opponents, but he will not have stopped anyone in more than five years by the time he fights again Nov. 22. Frankly, at 35, Pacquiao no longer can protect himself alone, so he’s being better protected by the people around him than Barack Obama.
That doesn’t mean Arum and trainer Freddie Roach aren’t doing their jobs. In fact they are. But shouldn’t a welterweight claiming to be among the best fighters in the world be forced to face real welterweights? Why not a unification fight with legitimate welterweights like IBF champion Shawn Porter or interim WBA champ Keith Thurman?
Perhaps because they are both young, undefeated and firing howitzers of late. These are the young guns Pacquiao (and Floyd Mayweather Jr., for that matter) should be facing if they are who they say they are.
But if the public wants to see those kind of fights, it has to stop paying to watch Manny Pacquiao face blown-up lightweights and junior welterweights while calling himself the welterweight champion of the world.
Money rematch
Mayweather announced this week what most everyone knew a long time ago. He’s running out of saleable options.
With his pay-per-view numbers falling but only Showtime paying the price for it, Mayweather accepted a rematch with Marcos Maidana. The thinking here probably is that he’ll beat Maidana more easily now that he knows what he’s about, and more people will watch because the first fight was more competitive than fans thought possible.
The two will square off Sept. 13 in Las Vegas with Mayweather guaranteed another $32 million and Maidana likely to command more than the $4.2 million received in their first fight.
Where do those numbers leave Showtime? Sweating more than Mayweather in the midst of a midnight gym workout. Two months have passed since the first fight, and Showtime has yet to announce the pay-per-view sales. According to industry sources, the fight failed to reach 850,000 views, and if those numbers persist, Showtime head honcho Stephen Espinoza will come under fire.
Since signing Mayweather to an outrageously one-sided guaranteed six-fight deal, Showtime’s only home run was the roughly 2.1 million views for the Canelo Alvarez bout. Mayweather’s fight with Robert Guerrero was both an artistic and sales flop.
So Mayweather is halfway through his deal and has broken the 1 million views mark only once. If you need a 1A side, doesn’t that make you a B-plus side? When did Oscar De La Hoya or Mike Tyson need a significant opponent to pile up PPV numbers?
They didn’t. Floyd always has. So Mayweather turned to Maidana in the hope his first performance will generate expanded interest in the rematch. For Showtime’s sake, it better.
Cups runneth out
This is the kind of story that makes you wonder if boxing will come out of the Dark Ages.
Lightweight champion Terence Crawford was shockingly effective in knocking out undefeated former junior lightweight champ Yuriorkis Gamboa, driving him to the floor four times as Crawford’s hometown crowd in Omaha cheered wildly.
Crawford was so convincing that Gamboa immediately returned to the 130-pound division after his first loss. So what’s the problem?
The problem was both fighters were awaiting post-fight urine testing, but nobody from the Nebraska Boxing Commission ever showed up with the cups. How much does a plastic cup cost in Omaha?
Technically under Nebraska rules, no testing is required, but both fighters expected it. Did they make it up on their own?
Short jabs
Two-time Chinese Olympic gold medalist and national icon Zou Shiming plus unbeaten super middleweight contender Gilberto Ramirez headline Arum’s July 19 show from Macau, telecast on HBO at 5 p.m. Eastern via tape delay. It will be Shiming’s first 10-round fight when he faces three-time world title challenger Luis De La Rosa. Ramirez opens the show vs. Junior Talipeau. . . .
On the same card, unified junior featherweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (13-0, eight KOs) defends his belt from the challenge of Sod Looknongyeng (63-2-1, 27 KOs), who will be making his third try at winning a world title. Rigondeaux is a master boxer in the Cuban system but considered displeasing by HBO suits, so his fight can only be seen on UniMas at 11 p.m. Eastern as the main event of its Solo Boxeo Tecate series. That’s a shame for aficionados of the sweet part of the sweet science, but such is the fate of those who box like Willie Pep. Pep wouldn’t make a dime today. . . .
Pacquiao’s last fight in Macau did less than 500,000 buys, by the way. Is his popularity waning or does he need a better B side these days? Arum blamed it on the time difference, but the fight was on in prime time in the U.S. so that’s bogus. If those numbers are repeated or decline, Pacquiao will have to come up with an A list opponent soon if he wants to keep getting paid. . . .
In case you were wondering why Erislandy Lara’s WBA junior middleweight title wasn’t on the line last night vs. Alvarez, don’t blame the champion. Alvarez had no interest in making the 154-pound limit and even less in paying a sanctioning fee for a belt he feels he doesn’t need. Lara (19-1-2, 12 KOs), not surprisingly, believed weight was the real issue, this being the second straight fight where Alvarez (43-1-1, 31 KOs) insisted on fighting a pound over the division limit. He might be right, but in this case, it seems more likely money was the issue. . . .
If you’re interested in memorabilia and owning a piece of boxing history and have a spare $500,000 or so, you can bid on the gloves Muhammad Ali wore in his first fight with Joe Frazier, which will be auctioned off July 31. Still thought of as the “Fight of the Century,’’ their March 8, 1971 meeting at Madison Square Garden is when Frazier dropped Ali on the seat of his pants to win not only a boxing match but a cultural war between America’s past and its looming future. Originally the property of Ali’s lifelong trainer, Angelo Dundee, they were auctioned off after Dundee’s death last year for $385,848.