By Norm Frauenheim-
Much has been attached to the Golden Boy Promotions card Saturday night at the SubHub Center in Carson, Calif.
Too much.
It’s there mostly because of hope that it represents an initial step beyond the balkanization of a business full of feuding promoters, who get bigger headlines than the fighters do these days. It’s also there because an Al Haymon-represented featherweight, Gary Russell Jr., is fighting Top Rank’s Vasyl Lomachenko in an undercard bout that figures to overshadow the main event, Robert Guerrero-Yoshihiro Kamegai.
“Honestly, it’s a big honor to break the cycle of the Al Haymon and Bob Arum Top Rank and Golden Boy dissent,” Russell said during a conference call. “I think you have these great fighters you know on both sides of the fence that the fans would love to see.”
Against Lomachenko, Russell sees a chance to tear down that fence.
“I think it’s a big breakthrough for me and Lomachenko to be able to be one of the first to actually do it, and hopefully this will open the door for a lot of the other fights that the fans would want to see take place.”
I hope Russell is right. But I’m not optimistic that Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr., or even Sergey Kovalev-Adonis Stevenson, is any closer because of a Russell-Lomachenko bout that was put together before Richard Schaefer quit his post as Oscar De La Hoya’s CEO. There are still too many unanswered questions. To wit: Who will De La Hoya hire to run Golden Boy’s day-to-day operations? More troubling is continuing uncertainty over who is contracted to Golden Boy and who to Haymon.
Not even Guerrero’s contract status is clear. He tried to split with Golden Boy in January. He was asked about it Tuesday during a conference call and again during a media day.
“It’s … you know, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” said Guerrero, who is back for the first tine since a one-sided loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in May, 2013. “I leave that stuff to my management and take care of my business in the ring.”
Instead of opening bell, most of the sport is waiting for an opening argument. That can’t be good for business.
Still, Russell and Lomachenko might put on a show that could embarrass the feuding promoters. A great fight would provide a glimpse at what could be if promotional egos and/or greed stay out of the way. There’s a chance that could happen.
Russell-Loamchenko has elements of a potential classic. Both are storied amateurs. Russell was a prodigy. He won a national Golden Gloves title when he was 16. Lomachenko was a legendary Olympian, a two-time gold medalist (2008 and 2012) for the Ukraine. At 24-0-1, Russell has pro experience. Yet in a curious switch, there are more questions about him than there are about Lomachenko (1-1), who got ahead of himself in his apprenticeship against Orlando Salido in only his second pro bout. Salido has been called a gatekeeper for a reason. He’ll throw the gate at you if he has to. Salido came in overweight and then he roughed up Lomachenko and his Olympic pedigree in winning a split decision. Some say that Russell’s fast hands move at a rate unseen since Meldrick Taylor. Yet, there are doubts about the quality of his opposition. He has never faced anybody with Salido’s willingness to win at any cost.
“Gary Russell is much faster than me” Lomachenko said during his media day. “He’s a very quick, speedy fighter, and I won’t know until we get into the ring how I plan to deal with it. But we’ll find out soon enough. I fought really fast guys in the amateurs. But those were only three-round fights, so I didn’t have time to try and figure out the style of who I was fighting.
“…I got good experience from my two professional fights. I came on the last half of my first fight so I think my stamina and conditioning is good. But every fight is different, so we’ll have to see.”
A great fight might not change the business. Not in the short term anyway. But it’d be nice to see what could be different.
