Here's the latest from the world of boxing:
10. This week’s announcement that Tyson Fury would face ex-UFC heavyweight champ Francis Ngannou on Oct. 28 in Saudi Arabia stirred a lot of strong feelings on social media, mostly from boxing fans irritated that Fury, the lineal heavyweight champion, was going to devote his one fight this year to what will be a one-sided event with a mixed martial artist.
I get that. Fury is boxing’s top heavyweight. Ngannou, a heavy-handed MMA star, has no chance of beating him. I repeat: No chance. Just like Mayweather-McGregor, which was equally as goofy, Fury-Ngannou will be noncompetitive. Any time a top boxer takes on a top mixed martial artist under boxing rules, the boxer will win. Every single time.
Couple things to think about, though. First, Fury didn’t have many appealing options. Negotiations for a unification fight against Oleksandr Usyk collapsed months ago and Anthony Joshua made it clear he wasn’t interested in facing Fury until next year. Talks for a matchup against Andy Ruiz went nowhere and Zhilei Zhang was taken off the board when Joe Joyce exercised his rematch clause. Sure, Fury could have booked a fight with Filip Hrgovic or Frank Sanchez, but those wouldn’t generate much of a payday.
Ngannou will. Fury will collect a career-best payday for facing Ngannou and he will do it in what should be the easiest fight he has had in years. Ngannou is 36, has never boxed and will be nearly two years removed from his last MMA fight when he steps in the ring. Fury, a pound-for-pound talent, will toy with him.
It’s notable that few fighters are criticizing Fury. Why? Because they would do the exact same thing. Joshua would. Deontay Wilder, too. A chance to collect tens of millions against an opponent that has just a (lucky) puncher’s chance to beat you? Who wouldn’t sign up for that?
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9. Tough break for Vergil Ortiz last, who was forced to pull out of a scheduled fight against Eimantas Stanionis after collapsing and needing to be rushed to the hospital during fight week. It’s the second time Ortiz has been forced out of a fight against Stanionis and the third time in the last 18 months that Ortiz, who has been battling Rhabdomyolysis, a rare muscle injury where proteins and electrolytes can get released into the bloodstream and cause organ damage, has been forced to pull out of a fight.
Ortiz declined an interview request from Sports Illustrated but his manager, Rick Mirigian, sent along a statement:
"During training [Vergil] fainted and then procedurally was taken to the hospital where protocol was to admit him an have a cardiologist monitor him. Tests and labs were done as well as his doctor evaluating him and subsequently they determined that they would not and could not allow him to fight or do anything strenuous in the immediate future. They came to the opinion that Vergil may have come back 30-60 days too soon from his Rabdo and not let his body fully heal increasing the extreme fatigue factor that most fighters go through on fight week training. There is no handbook for recovering from Rabdo then fighting again right after it. I don't think it's even been done in the sport or confronted. The good news is Vergil is Rabdo free and home now and stable. He still has some aches and pains but [is] good. He will take some time off to fully allow his body to recover and our team will meet an look at his options including moving up to 154-pounds. Expect him back in December in a big way.”
8. HBO will premiere a two-part documentary on Oscar De La Hoya, beginning on Oct. 24. The doc promises to explore De La Hoya’s “triumphs and turmoil to reveal a man struggling to come to terms with lifelong demons and the impossible burden of a nickname he couldn’t live up to.”
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7. Alycia Baumgardner, the undisputed 130-pound champion, will defend her titles on Saturday when she takes on Christina Linardatou, who handed Baumgardner her only loss back in 2018.
The real fight though, is against Mikaela Mayer, the ex-U.S. Olympian and former unified 130-pound champion who Baumgardner edged in a title unification fight last year. Mayer has since moved up in weight, but Baumgardner told me this week that she would be willing to follow Mayer up to 135-pounds for the rematch.
“Mikaela is all over the place,” Baumgardner said. “She doesn’t know where she wants to be, 130, 135 or 140. I said I would move up to 135 to give her the advantage to rematch her. I know I’ll beat her. However that looks, however it would be, she knows where I’m at.
“She wants [the rematch] bad. I’m on her mind 24-7. She dreams about it every night. If it’s not on Twitter it’s on her phone, it’s on her mind, people coming up to her saying ‘hey you fought Alycia right?’ It’s brewing in her mind constantly. She wants the rematch. I want the rematch. The rivalry between us was spicy and I think that’s what boxing needs right now. I’m all for doing it again.”
6. Has Matchroom and Golden Boy made a fight between Jaime Munguia and Edgar Berlanga yet? When will Oscar De La Hoya and Eddie Hearn stop squabbling with each other on Twitter to make a big time fight in the super middleweight division?
5. Marlen Esparza unified three of the 112-pound titles last weekend, earning a hard-fought decision win over Gabriela Alaniz. The issue wasn’t the outcome but the wideness of the scorecards. Judge Lisa Giampa scored the fight 95-95, which was in line with how I scored the fight from ringside. Giampa was overruled by Esther Lopez, who scored it 97-93 for Esparza, and Javier Alvarez, who had it 99-91.
The Alvarez scorecard was particularly disturbing. Alaniz outlanded Esparza in six of the ten rounds, per CompuBox. She landed more power shots in eight of them. Alaniz, who was the aggressor throughout the fight, threw 224 more punches than Esparza, who was the more efficient (31% to 20%) of the two. That Alvarez identified just one round to give Alaniz was bizarre.
Predictable, too. Alvarez has had some erratic scorecards lately. He scored Stanionis’s fight last year against Radzhab Butaev for Butaev. The other two judges correctly scored it for Stanionis. In Murodjon Akhmadaliev’s 122-pound title defense against Marlon Tapales, two judges awarded Tapales a close win. Alvarez scored the fight 118-110 for Akhmadaliev.
Alaniz put on a brave face in the ring but when she left the ring she briefly collapsed in tears in her trainers arms. Fighters work so hard and sacrifice so much. To have that work overlooked by a judge who is clearly not fit to be working at this level is outrageous. As I said on-air, the Texas commission needs to look into Alvarez’s scoring of the fight. Though I’m not holding my breath.
4. In the least surprising news of the year, Teofimo Lopez has informed the WBO that he intends to keep his 140-pound title. Lopez had declared he was retired after defeating Josh Taylor last month but has informed the WBO and his promoter, Top Rank, that he plans to keep fighting.
Via text message, Lopez explained the reasoning by his decision to keep his belt.
“The possibility of Devin Haney fighting for my belt next against sorry ass [Arnold] Barboza,” Lopez said. “Tired of helping these fighters be something that they’re not!”
A showdown with Haney, the undisputed lightweight champion, is a natural fight to make. There has been bad blood between Haney and Lopez for years, dating back to Lopez inheriting the WBC’s “franchise” title from Vasyl Lomachenko while Haney held the sanctioning bodies regular belt.
Still, I’m told Lopez will be out for a few months—he’s had some well documented personal issues that are still being sorted out—which could lead Haney to seek another fight. Eddie Hearn has made an offer for Haney to face 140-pound titleholder Regis Prograis while Shakur Stevenson is campaigning for a fight with Haney at 135.
3. Is there anyone with a bigger stretch coming up than Derrick James? On July 29 James, Sports Illustrated’s 2020 Trainer of the Year, will be in Las Vegas, working the corner of Errol Spence in the biggest fight of the year. Two weeks later he will be in London, serving as chief second for Anthony Joshua in his rivalry settling fight against Dillian Whyte. In September, James will train Jermell Charlo for his showdown with Canelo Alvarez on Sept. 30. Oh, and on Saturday, James will work lightweight contender Frank Martin’s fight against Artem Harutyunyan. And James recently linked up with Ryan Garcia, who hopes to return before the end of the year. That’s as powerful a stable as any trainer has ever assembled.
