By Norm Frauenheim–
Three more significant fights close out a year best forgotten. Good-bye and good riddance, 2020. The fear is that a long, dark year won’t be so easy to dismiss, not for boxing or anything else.
But symbolically, at least, the proverbial page turns amid hopes, perhaps prayers, that Anthony Joshua or Shakur Stevenson or Canelo Alvarez can knock out the nightmare.
Joshua and Stevenson fight this Saturday, Joshua on DAZN against Kubrat Pulev in London and Stevenson against Toka Kahn Clary on ESPN in Las Vegas in the so-called bubble at the MGM Grand.
Canelo gets the last word seven days later, Dec. 19, in an interesting fight against super-middleweight champion Callum Smith, also on DAZN, at San Antonio’s Alamodome.
All three have one thing in common. Joshua, Stevenson and Canelo are fighting to stake a claim on better days expected in 2021. Vaccine, the COVID counter, is here. It’s already being administered in the UK where the injection is called the jab. At a boxing level, that figures. The UK speaks the language.
For the last year, at least, the UK proved it knew more about boxing than the U.S. ever did. Before the pandemic forced the sport into a shutdown and into a bubble, UK heavyweight Tyson Fury had a jab and American Deontay Wilder did not. On Feb. 22, Fury overwhelmed Wilder, who blamed his loss on a spiked water bottle, loaded gloves and maybe voter fraud. He even blamed a bizarre costume, a medieval-looking outfit that clanked like a tomato can on his walk to the ring.
He went down like a tomato can, too.
But it’s not clear whether a lesson in the fundamental necessity of a jab came out the wreckage of a seventh-round surrender to the skilled, clever Fury. Without at least that, it looks as if Wilder might have to settle for Bridgerweight wages in a new division (200-224 pounds) announced by the World Boxing Council.
From this corner, it looks as if Fury will bypass a third fight against Wilder and go straight to an all-UK showdown with Joshua. Joshua figures to beat Pulev. There are some questions, however, that linger like everything in a bad year. We haven’t seen Joshua fight since he played it safe in a unanimous decision over a woefully-unprepared Andy Ruiz more than a year ago – Dec. 7, 2019 – in Saudi Arabia. It was a rematch of his stunning loss, a seventh-round stoppage, on June 1, 2019 to Ruiz, then a stand-in and forever a stand-in.
A cautious Joshua? Or the Joshua who lost to Ruiz? Either version loses to the pedestrian, yet competent Pulev. But Joshua has had a year to forget about Ruiz. It would be a surprise if he hasn’t moved on. Expect him to return more like the heavyweight who stopped Wladimir Klitschko in such dramatic fashion in April 2017.
Then, there’s Stevenson in a Saturday doubleheader. He’ll be making his second appearance at 130 pounds against Clary, known mostly for MMA success. Stevenson, who opened Top Rank’s bubble in June with a stoppage of Felix Caraballo and will close it in December, is talking as though he has pound-for-pound aspirations. He says he wants to knock Carl Frampton into retirement. He called out former pound-for-pound No. 1 Vasiliy Lomachenko, telling Boxing Scene that the Ukrainian was “too scared” in his loss to Teofimo Lopez on Oct. 17. He’s placing bet, a P4P chip on 2021.
So, too, is Canelo. He might have the best bet of all. But his bout against Callum Smith is problematic, in part because of Smith solid skillset and his own extended stay on the sidelines. Canelo has been idle for more than a year. His last fight: November 2, 2019 in an 11th-round stoppage of shopworn light-heavyweight Sergey Kovalev.
Since then, Canelo sued and split with promoter Oscar De La Hoya. He’s a free agent, his own promoter. He’ll be back on DAZN, at least for this fight in front of a socially-distanced crowd of fans who figure to be culturally aligned with the best Mexican fighter of his generation.
The Canelo fight also will happen five weeks after welterweight Terence Crawford’s stoppage of Kell Brook in a pound-for-pound statement on Nov. 14.
Errol Spence followed that up with a solid decision over Danny Garcia last Saturday in his first bout since surviving a scary car crash more than a year ago. Now, there’s talk that Crawford-versus-Spence has to happen in 2021. Didn’t we hear that last year? And the year before? Blah-blah-blah.
The clock is ticking while fans are talking. Crawford is 33; Spence is 30. There’s not much prime time left in the hourglass. Yet, Crawford, himself, isn’t exactly clear about what he wants to do. The latest uncertainty came in the form of a tweet this week.
“I’m moving back down to 135,’’ the former lightweight champ said Wednesday in a tweet that ended with an expletive.
Is Crawford, who knows how to feint, just effing around?
It’s also not clear how Canelo will look in his first fight in more than a year. But he will have the last word. Here’s hoping it includes Good and bye to a year that in boxing terms has been an undisputed mess.
