By Bart Barry-
Three fights happen across nine timezones Saturday in a crescendo of sorts before boxing’s summer ritual ends much of our fun. Going least essential to most, Tyson Fury returns against someone named Sefer Seferi in England, Leo Santa Cruz and Abner Mares finally rematch in Los Angeles, and Jeff Horn defends his fraction of the world’s welterweight championship against Terence Crawford in Las Vegas. If none of these events is great or particularly consequential, none is bad either, and all three should entertain.
This was going to be a piece about how much better than the rest of us a gay novelist can describe the movements of a man’s body – for glancing through a lens of avarice – then a glance at next week’s docket undid those plans. As we round the bend and race towards our seasonless sport’s annual doldrums wisdom advises against spending boxingless ideas the week before three compelling things happen. Fear not, though, an attempt to explore and celebrate a sexualized description of the male form will happen at least before GolovCanelo 2 does.
MGM Grand becomes Hornet’s Nest Northern Hemisphere this week as Aussie hoards ascend on Las Vegas, one hopes, to see their man defend his WBO title against one of today’s two best fighters. This marks Terence Crawford’s debut at 147 pounds, and it’s not a particularly easy one mainly for this reason: Horn’s first prizefight happened against a man who weighed 154 1/2 pounds, while Crawford’s first opponent weighed 138.
This three-weightclasses difference might mean less if Horn were a boxer or a slugger – since Crawford could slug his way through a long cutie or use defense and footwork to dissuade a onetrick puncher. But Horn’s a volume guy, a physical one, who expects to get hit often by men who likely punch harder than, if not accurately as, Crawford. The angles and stanceswitching tricks Crawford uses to disarm then attack smaller men mightn’t make much difference to Horn. So long as some part of Crawford is somewhere in front of Horn, regardless which part is in front of the other, expect Horn to hit that part. Horn cuts easily, and Crawford is very good at what he does, so there’s little chance Horn makes it to the closing bell, and even littler chance Vegas judges give him what doubtful benefits judges do in Brisbane, but the match should be fun.
The competing priorities of ESPN’s app launch and < $5.99 pay-per-view price (if you combine “Nature Boy”, noticeably better than “Andre the Giant”, for an adult anyway, with Horn-Crawford, you’re paying 95-percent less than you paid for Crawford-Postol) leave only one worry, which returns, as usual, to commentary. If ESPN plays it straight, tempering the crew’s admiration for Crawford with investigative stories about Horn’s having a father, all will be fine, regardless of outcome. But if ESPN has already decided Crawford must win because promoter Top Rank promised he would and having the world’s two best fighters on the network overwhelms every other consideration, things could go staggeringly sideways, the way they did when Horn narrowly upset Manny Pacquiao and widely upset Teddy Atlas.
Nothing so untoward will happen on Showtime when boxing’s best broadcast team covers Santa Cruz-Mares 2, a rematch no one considers anymore essential but everyone has a reasonable expectation will be safe and busy as their first match. Neither man has suffered an unavenged loss in the nearly three years since their first fight, but their promotional and managerial situation precludes either man from maintaining professional momentum. Santa Cruz now fights every eight months – a rate of activity at which Mares gazes lustfully. After PBC paid ESPN to televise the men’s first scrap, aficionados suspected the delay that followed was attributable to PBC’s having to save up to buy another broadcaster for the rematch, but evidently we were wrong. Santa Cruz would return six months later to beatdown Kiko Martinez and Mares would go underground for 16 months.
Much as both men rely on activity the more active fighter will win Saturday, and that should be Santa Cruz. The gloves will look too big and the rounds will meld together, but the match will have action enough for someone to mistake it for 2018’s fight of the year, until at least July.
That leaves only the return of boxing’s clown king, Tyson Fury, on a Saturday afternoon card illegally streaming from Manchester. It has been 2 1/2 years since England’s enormous lunatic decisioned Wladimir Klitschko and everything has changed about the heavyweight division except Fury. There have been suspensions and cancellations and rehabilitations and protestations, but Fury is unbowed, genuine and loony as he was ages ago when he became heavyweight champion of the world. He’s either out of shape or in the shape of his life for his return against an unknown man with whom he hopes to log rounds. He is publicly vulnerable in a way one does not expect a 6-foot-9 and 247-274-pound professional fighter to be, and so he wins fans’ forgiveness for being likable. He is capable of decisioning any man in the world, too, including Anthony Joshua, and likely as not to denude Deontay Wilder, 120-108, if ever PBC’s poverty forces such an encounter.
Frankly Wilder-Fury is the fight we deserve, whatever better match we happen to want, a reasonable man who fights crazy against a crazy man who fights reasonable, and both men grasp their division is about spectacle much as merit – while AJ’s dignity precludes his being less or more than a rolemodel, however little boxing fans honestly ever want such a thing.
Writing of which, let’s see if we can collect some clicks in this, our new, legalized-sports-betting country:
Crawford stops Horn on cuts in round 11.
Santa Cruz decisions Mares 115-113, 113-115, 115-113.
Fury TKOs Seferi with a somersault punch in round 7.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry
