By Norm Frauenheim –
It’s not exactly a surprise that the World Boxing Council decided this week that the David Benavidez-Demetrius Andrade winner will be Canelo Alvarez’ mandatory challenger.
It only would have been news if the WBC had not done so during its Uzbekistan convention, a gathering that did produce headlines, including WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman’s silly fight with The Ring, a magazine older than any acronym and a century-old publication that charges a subscription fee but never a sanctioning fee.
I’ve written for The Ring.
I’ve got a subscription.
I buy my own belts.
Conventions, of course, are always trying to create news, and — from bridgerweight to franchise belts — the WBC has generated its share.
The Ring, which awards its own championship belts, “threatens the credibility’’ of boxing, Sulaiman told iFL TV. Year-in, year -out, boxing does a pretty good job of that, all by its lonesome.
Nevertheless, I’m sure the WBC-versus-The Ring will never be a Fight of the Year contender. X-worthy, maybe. Pay-per-view, definitely not.
It’s an unfortunate sideshow, a diversion from what will happen on Nov. 25 with the Benavidez-Andrade fight at Mandalay Bay’s Michelob ULTRA Arena in Las Vegas. It’ll be the beginning of Showtime’s end, it’s final pay-per-view boxing telecast.
That’s what threatens boxing.
Not The Ring.
It’s an existential threat, one that will be there no matter who – Benavidez or Andrade — emerges from the super-middleweight bout as Canelo’s mandatory challenger.
What’s really mandatory is a network, a streaming or lineal TV partner with the cash and clout to stage a projected May or September fight featuring Canelo, boxing’s highest earner over the last several years.
Canelo got a reported $12 million in 2013 for his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. Since then, his purses have doubled, tripled. His guarantee for a trilogy victory over Gennadiy Golovkin in September 2022 was reported to be $45-million.
Is there any network willing to join Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) in a partnership to pay that much to Canelo against the Phoenix-born Benavidez or Andrade?
There’s no answer, and there doesn’t figure to be one until after Nov. 25. The aggressive Benavidez is about a 4-to-1 favorite over the skilled Andrade. Canelo-Benavidez figures to be a better sell than Canelo-Andrade. Canelo-Benavidez, Mexican-versus-Mexican-American, has been one fight fans have been demanding for a couple of years.
Maybe, that demand is high enough to interest a network. For now, however, it’s only a question, one that’s also creating uncertainty about a contracted Terence Crawford-Errol Spence rematch, projected for early next year.
For as long as there’s no network, there’s no sequel.
Crawford, who was stripped of the International Boxing Federation’s welterweight title just months after his brilliant summer stoppage of Spence, was asked about it while in Vegas for the Shakur Stevenson-Edwin De Los Santos late Thursday night at T-Mobile Arena.
“I don’t know,” Crawford told reporters at the weigh-in Wednesday. “It’s still up in the air, given the fact that Showtime has no longer decided to do boxing. So, everything’s up in the air right now with that.’’
Up and ominous, a real threat instead of an imaginary one.
