By Norm Frauenheim–

During days when there’s more talk about fights that don’t get made instead of those that do, promoter Eddie Hearn has an interesting idea involving the latest one to frustrate fans.

Caleb Plant-versus-David Benavidez has been near the top of the wish list for a couple of years, yet no amount of trash talk or apparent interest has moved it any closer to reality.

It’s right there, another fantasy fight consigned to never-never land. Maybe, it’ll show up as a co-feature on the Terence Crawford-Errol Spence Jr. card. Yeah right. Wait on. Dream on.

On the surface, Plant-Benavidez appears to be as unlikely as ever in the wake of Plant’s one-sided decision over Caleb Truax last weekend. Plant added a victory to his record and a loss to his reputation.

His skillset was exposed, shown to be wanting, especially in his hopes for a super-middleweight biggie with Canelo Alvarez. Perhaps, Plant’s performance was an aberration.

Plant had said he wanted to get past his mandatories. That’s all he did against Truax.  He also could have been limited by a hand injury, which he said he suffered midway throughout the 12-round shutout.

Maybe.

Just maybe.

Abundantly clear to Hearn and everybody else in a surprisingly large FOX audience (1.887 million, peaking at 2.019 million, according to Nielsen), however, was that Plant isn’t ready for Canelo any more than Benavidez is.

Hearn suggested during an appearance on “The Ak & Barak Show” (DAZN and SiriusXM) that Plant and Benavidez meet in what would be an eliminator for the right to face Canelo, perhaps in September.

It makes sense

Maybe too much sense.

Remember, this is boxing, constant chaos.

In post-fight interviews after Truax, Plant repeated that he intends to wait on Canelo, who has a mandatory defense scheduled for Feb. 27 against Turkish challenger Avni Yildirim in Miami and then a title unification fight with UK belt-holder Billy Joe Saunders in early May.

From a promotional standpoint, Plant-Benavidez might inject some anticipation for Canelo’s next couple of bouts. He’s a 20-to-1 favorite over Yildirim. Those odds figure to multiply as opening bell approaches.

The Saunders bout promises to be a lot more competitive, yet Canelo still figures to be the favorite. Plant-Benavidez would just be another reason to talk about Canelo, who recently signed a two-fight deal with Hearn. Talk is also another way of turning up the volume on Canelo’s ongoing campaign for No. 1 in the pound-for-pound debate.

It would work, work on a couple of levels.

Then again, it could come apart because of that constant chaos, boxing’s only reliable business model. It’s not clear how serious Plant’s hand injury is. If it keeps the super-middleweight belt-holder out of the gym for a long stretch, a promotional idea remains on the wish list.

More problematic, perhaps, is Benavidez’ weight. Can he make 168 anymore? He failed the day before his stoppage of Roamer Alexis Angulo last August. It cost him his belt and an immediate chance at Canelo. 

There’s talk that Benavidez is already in the 175-pound division. We’ll find out the day, March 12, before he fights Ronald Ellis on March 13 when he returns to the scene of the August scale fail at Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Conn.

That’s when and where Benavidez will be back on that scale as either a light-heavyweight or with a renewed chance to get back in line for Canelo.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Mandatory means order, command. Do it or else. But it could mean just about anything in today’s boxing dictionary, which is another way of saying it means bupkis.

There are mandatory challengers. Super-middleweight champion Caleb Plant faces one in another Caleb, Truax, Saturday (Fox 5 pm PT/8 pm ET) in Los Angeles.

There are mandatory defenses. Canelo Alvarez is scheduled for one on Feb. 27 (DAZN) against super-middleweight challenger Avni Yildirim in Miami.

Trouble is, there’s no mandatory watching.

Mandatory in boxing is just another day at the office. (Insert yawn here.) It’s process, procedure. It’s a nice enough idea, a fair way to reward journeymen like Truax and Yildirim. For Plant and especially Canelo, it’s a prerogative, one that comes with a belt and their respective records. Take an easy, stay-busy fight and call it a mandatory.

But there’s no mandate that anybody has to care. Guess here: Few do. In the end, it’s the fans who still have a mandate that hasn’t been reduced to euphemism.

They can choose to watch.

Or not.

Their prerogative.

It’s a slam dunk to say that they’d watch David Benavidez against Plant instead of Truax. The Benavidez-Plant rivalry has been boiling for a couple of years now. Their ongoing exchange of trash talk was there throughout this week, despite Plant’s imminent date with Truax and news that Benavidez will fight Ronald Ellis on March 13.

Benavidez, a Phoenix fighter who lost his belt on the scale in August, posted a photo of Plant on a Wanted, Dead Or Alive poster on Instagram this week.

“But he’s gonna have to wait in line like a good little boy, off to the side, because I got my fight January 30th and then I got bigger fish to fry with Canelo after that, and then I’ll get to him when I get to him,’’ Plant told FightHype.

Expect more of the mandatory trash talk not long after Saturday’s fight. Plant by stoppage –say the seventh round – looks likely. Plant is an overwhelming favorite – from minus-1200 at SportsBettingDime.com to minus-3000 at BetMGM

Odds favoring Canelo over Yildirim are even bigger. He’s at minus-5000 and counting, according to some books. In other words, Yildirim has about as much a chance at winning as Donald Trump has at apologizing.

Meanwhile, we wait on some real drama at 168 pounds, perhaps with Plant-Canelo or Canelo-Billy Joe Saunders in May. It’s a loaded division, but for now it’s loaded only with potential. It’s those mandatories that get in the way.

A path around that process, however, might be emerging. So-called exhibitions are a threat to business-as-usual. There’s been more talk this week about a possible Ryan Garcia-Manny Pacquiao exhibition than there has been about Plant-Truax, a sanctioned title fight. The Mike Tyson-Roy Jones Jr. pay-per-view exhibition in November drew a bigger audience than any bout last year.

On one level, it’s ridiculous to call any fight an exhibition. The risk of injury is still there. A fight is a fight is a fight, whether in a parking lot or in a regulated ring.

Garcia’s social-media popularity and Pacquiao’s enduring celebrity are part of the buzz. At opening bell, however, people will watch no matter what it’s called. Garcia-Pacquiao is an interesting exhibition. Interesting fight, too. A title belt and all of the attached mandatories just don’t matter much anymore.

Garcia, who holds an interim (aren’t they all?) belt, put it best in an interview with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith.

“What doesn’t matter is belts,’’ said Garcia, who made a belt sound like a hood ornament. “I wear this belt because it looks good. Doesn’t it look good? It does make me look good. The truth is, there’s too many belts, there are too many champions. You don’t know who the true champion is.’’

The genuine in Garcia looks better than any belt ever could. It’s what appeals to young fans, who have a mandate of their own. Pay attention to it. That’s a mandatory warning. 

By Norm Frauenheim–

Canelo Alvarez’ contract with Matchroom for two fights with DAZN, the streaming service he sued, is a further example of his power. He gets what he wants.

The deal, formally announced Thursday, is also a further look at a career path carefully drawn up to include bouts and belts that figure to strengthen his claim on the top spot in the pound-for-pound debate.

Canelo is as stubbornly methodical outside of the ropes as he is within them. He’s working to eliminate any other pound-for-pound argument. The process resumes on Feb. 27 in Miami against Turkish challenger Avni Yidirim in a stay-busy bout that sets the stage for a further unification of the super-middleweight title against Billy Joe Saunders or Caleb Plant.

Of the two, Saunders looks to be the most likely in large part because of a long-term promotional relationship with Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn. Saunders also brings the UK audience. But exact date doesn’t seem to matter much. If it is Saunders in May, it figures to be Plant in September. Or vice-versa.

The key is that each has a 168-pound belt that Canelo needs to unify the title and finish the argument. For now, it continues, an ongoing argument reflected in polls conducted and marketed by rival networks. DAZN’s No. 1 is Canelo; ESPN’s No. 1 is welterweight Terence Crawford. Pick your acronym and reasoning.

There’s the body of work theory, which favors the once-beaten Canelo. There’s the eye-test, which favors the unbeaten Crawford. At least, it does from this corner. Put it this way: 2020 ended with Crawford finishing Kell Brook on Nov. 14 in a fourth-round TKO and Canelo scoring a one-sided decision on Dec. 19 over an overmatched Callum Smith.

Canelo’s side of the debate could include a couple of more belts and a busier schedule. For now, that’s the advertised plan and advertising counts for a lot in this debate. Canelo is moving forward. Other than more talk about an ever-elusive date with Errol Spence Jr, it’s not clear what’s next for Crawford.

Meanwhile, Canelo’s plan does not include any mention of Gennadiy Golovkin or David Benavidez. For both, it’s a case of weight and wait, a frustrating dilemma for them and fans.

Golovkin fought Canelo to a controversial draw and lost to him narrowly by majority decision, both at middleweight. But GGG’s prime is going, going, gone. Time is an issue.

If Canelo’s 2021 schedule is already booked with Yidirim, Saunders and Plant, Golovkin will probably have to wait until 2022. GGG will be 40 on April 8 of that year.

At the other end of the age and weight scale, there’s Benavidez, who many believe might have the best chance at upsetting Canelo. Benavidez is 24. He’s young, but that’s the problem. His failure to make weight presumably dropped him off of Canelo’s short list.

With a belt, he would have been there. But he lost it – the World Boxing Council’s version – on Aug. 14 when the Phoenix fighter was 2.8 pounds heavier than the limit for a defense against Roamer Alexis Angulo.

Benavidez went on to stop Angulo, forcing the Venezuelan’s corner to throw in the towel after the 10^th round. But he lost a career-defining opportunity. He’s still young enough to regain it. But making the 168-pound limit doesn’t figure to get any easier for the maturing Benavidez, who figures to be a light-heavyweight within a couple of years. 

The costly scale-fail in August happened in part because of the Pandemic, according to Benavidez, who said it disrupted familiar routines for his bout at Mohegan Sun Casino & Resort in Connecticut. There was no sauna. There was no gym other than a treadmill and a stationary bike in the hotel.

Benavidez, a lanky 6-foot-1 ½, says he plans to stay at super-middleweight for as long as he can.  But time, already a problem for Golovkin, is there for Benavidez too. The alarm sounded when he stepped on that scale in mid-August.

Without a belt, Benavidez’ only leverage is the media. He repeatedly calls out Canelo. But Canelo doesn’t seem to hear him. He’s got other plans.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred estimates that owners have lost $3 billion. A shortened spring-training schedule cost the state of Arizona $281 million in economic impact. Baseball players took a 63-percent cut in pay. The National Hockey League chief says the NHL is skating toward a $1 billion loss. 

Teofimo Lopez says he wants $10 million to fight.

Apparently, Lopez hasn’t read the headlines from other arenas, both in sports and real life. Nothing is immune from a pandemic that is bankrupting optimism and eroding bank accounts.

It’s hard to blame Lopez, the emerging face of boxing’s new generation. The 23-year-old lightweight champion grew up watching The Money Team. His generation saw Floyd Mayweather Jr. count stacks of cash and collect exotic cars. Mayweather’s purse mattered more than the punches.

But Mayweather’s economic model is gone. Vaccines won’t save it, at least not in the short term. It’s time to climb out of the bubble and take a look around. Look at the seats, vacant because of COVID. Empty seats are a little bit like empty pockets.

Look at the news. Example: Los Angeles firefighters, 3,600 strong, agreed to the delay of a pay raise because of budget cuts that could lead to job losses. Don’t expect too many firefighters to shell out $50, $60, $70 in pay-per-view. It’s a new world. A painful one, too.

Yet, the ring craft remains the same. Compelling and crude, still painful no matter how big — or small — the purse. At some level, it’ll always be there.

Lopez’ arrival is simply a matter of lousy timing. It’s not his fault. But $10-million to fight Devin Haney or George Kambosos Jr. in Australia isn’t realistic, either.

Haney promoter Eddie Hearn told Boxing Social that Lopez demanded $10-million during an encounter in San Antonio during Canelo Alvarez’ one-sided decision over Callum Smith last month. Then, Lopez repeated the demand when Boxing Scene asked him about a proposed fight with Kambosos in Sydney.

Haney-Lopez is “a wonderful fight,” Hearn said.

But not at that price.

“In this world right now, it ain’t going to happen,’’ Hearn told Boxing Social.

The key has been – and continues to be – a live crowd not limited by the social-distancing mandated in the ongoing fight against COVID. Until then, purses will also be limited.

Maybe, vaccines will change all of that later this year. Then again, maybe not. The availability of vaccines and the process of getting an injection are still a hodgepodge of bureaucracy and politics. Hurry up and wait.

The uncertainty continues to be reflected in the where and when of the proposed Tyson Fury-Anthony Joshua fight. If ever a fight belonged in the UK, Fury-Joshua is it. It would be a historical clash between UK heavyweights. It’s ridiculous to even say that it could go elsewhere. But elsewhere looks likely because there’s a lot more COVID than cash in the UK these days.

Somehow, Fury-Joshua in Saudi Arabia is akin to the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. But that happened. In 1967, the bridge over the River Thames was dismantled and relocated four years later above the Colorado River in western Arizona.

Ridiculous, yet real. Trouble is, what should just be silly threatens to further erode the fringe of what is already a fringe sport. Core fans are loyal, but their patience is a little bit like their money. It’s not limitless.

Lopez’ $10-million price is already being interpreted as his way of saying he just won’t fight Haney. Maybe, Lopez is just woofing. He’s entertaining, confident and likes to talk. He’s good for the game. But if the demand is real, the lightweight division is in danger of going the way of the welterweights.

Lopez’ dramatic upset of Vasiliy Lomachenko on Oct. 17 followed by Ryan Garcia’s seventh-round stoppage of Luke Campbell on Jan. 2 pushed the 135-pound division to center stage. If the welterweights can’t save the game, the lightweights can. Lopez, Haney, Gervonta Davis and Ryan Garcia have already been dubbed Four Kings. Add current 130-pound champion Shakur Stevenson and you’ve got a Fab Five.

But the danger in Lopez’s demand could turn a game-saving division into another never-never morass. At 147 pounds, there’s Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr. They should have fought a couple of years ago. Increasingly, it looks as if they’ll never fight, or at least they won’t in their respective primes.

That’s bad for business.

In any time.    

By Norm Frauenheim-

Canelo Alvarez finished 2020, which ended amid relief and hope that business as usual will be there sometime in a new year. Then, Ryan Garcia started 2021 with a bang as loud as a firecracker and yet still haunted by concern that the new will be a lot like the old.

Canelo’s decision over an overmatched Callum Smith on Dec. 19 promised a resumption of some lost reliability. That was followed by some real momentum in Garcia’s powerful stoppage of Luke Campbell on Jan. 2.

But it gave way to a hiatus, which is a polite word describing the same void that descended on boxing like a curtain last year. There were more postponements, cancellations and quarantines than opening bells. For a haphazard 10 months, there was no way out of the bubble.

Are we there all over again? Hope not. But there’s no boxing for nearly two weeks, or at least until Jan. 20 when ShoBox is scheduled to begin a 20^th season with junior-welterweight “Marvelous” Mykquan Williams (15-0-1, 7 KOs) against Colombian Yeis Gabriel (15-0, 10 KOs) in a bout between unbeaten prospects at Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut.

Scheduled is the operative word, of course. Maybe, maybe not. Tomorrow is as tentative now as it was a month ago. The calendar has changed, but not much else.  

Big fights are getting shut down for the same reason that everything else is. Only COVID is unbeaten. The killer pandemic rages on. Anybody remember when they had a sit-down meal inside a restaurant? Didn’t think so. I haven’t had one since about the last time I had a seat near ringside. The plate remains mostly empty for now.

No big fights are imminent, mostly because of the surging Pandemic, which has forced a shutdown in the usually busy UK until at least the end of the month.

On Jan. 23, junior-featherweight Angelo Leo is scheduled to defend a 122-pound title against Stephen Fulton, also at the Mohegan Sun, on Showtime.

A week later (Jan. 30), Caleb Plant is scheduled to stay in line for a shot at Canelo in a 168-pound title defense against Caleb Truax on Fox.

On the same day, shopworn ex-light-heavyweight champ Sergey Kovalev is scheduled to re-appear for the first time since getting knocked out by Canelo (Nov. 2, 2019). Kovalev is scheduled to face Bektemir Melikuziev on DAZN in Moscow in a bout that presumably hinges on whether the Sputnik V vaccine really works or is just another piece of fictional garbage from some Russian hackers.

Meanwhile, there will be mostly talk:

·    Talk about how Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr. should fight in perhaps the best welterweight bout in many years, but probably never will.

·    Talk that Teofimo Lopez is willing to fight anybody in the lightweight division. He just told The Athletic he wants to fight Devin Haney, Gervonta Davis and Garcia.  ‘We’ve got to face one another’, he said. Hopefully, he also wants to fight Shakur Stevenson, currently a junior-lightweight champ. Lopez, Haney, Davis and Garcia are already being called Four Kings, a nod to the terrific George Kimball book on Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Roberto Duran and Thomas Hearns. Guess here: The predicted Four Kings will become The Fab Five. Expect Stevenson, perhaps the best of them, to move up the scale to 135.

·    More talk from Tyson Fury about how he plans to knock out Anthony Joshua. And more talk from Joshua about how he’ll silence Fury. And more crazy talk from Deontay Wilder.

·    More talk from Canelo that, yeah, he’ll fight Gennadiy Golovkin in a decisive third bout. But, first, he plans to fight a mandatory super-middleweight defense against Turk Avni Yildirim and then pursue title unifications against Plant and Billy Joe Saunders. Check back in January, 2022. Canelo will still be talking about a third date with GGG.

A belated Happy 2021, a new year that defies plans and predictions. Just a prayer works. Pray that the vaccines work. Pray we can all meet at ringside and then at a restaurant to celebrate the fights, the fighters and lost friends.

By Norm Frauenheim–

A welcome chance to say goodbye to a lousy year begins amid reasons for skepticism about whether the new one will be any better.

The calendar changes.

The mood doesn’t.

Not with comments from Errol Spence and Terence Crawford that seem to eliminate any chance of them fighting in 2021 or any other year. Not with Canelo Alvarez headed for a mandatory title defense against Avni Yildirim, a super-middleweight with less name recognition and perhaps fewer skills than Callum Smith.

Yet, the year’s second day offers some promise, a glimpse perhaps at an emerging new face that can drag boxing out of a balkanized never-never land crisscrossed by rival promoters, networks and acronyms.

The promise is there, in Ryan Garcia’s unscarred face. There, too, in power augmented by hand speed. There, too, in charisma, the so-called “it” factor. It isn’t quite the intangible it once was. Garcia can put a number on it.  His social-media audience is reported to 7.8 million. That’s not a following. It’s an empire.

That it, and all of its expectations, will be watching Saturday when Garcia’s star potential undergoes its first substantive test against Luke Campbell on DAZN at American Airlines Center in Dallas.

News broke Thursday that no more tickets were available for seats allowed under the socially-distancing protocol mandated by Texas. It wasn’t exactly clear what the sellout means in terms of numbers. But there’s a sense that Garcia would generate a capacity crowd no matter how many seats.

It’s easy to dismiss the social-media aspect. It’s a target, an inevitable one for Campbell, a UK Olympic gold medalist who says Garcia’s popular appearances on video are a one-man show. In the ring’s reality, he’ll be facing – fighting — Campbell instead of just a stationary bag and a camera.  Yet in an unexpected twist for fans skeptical of social media, Garcia’s huge following is a reason to like him.

He was a fighter before he was a social-media star, unlike the new generation of YouTubers. They gained social-media fame before they ever stepped through the ropes. On a YouTubers’ tale of the tape only the social-media number counts.

To wit: Garcia is real, the Paul wannabes aren’t. I wouldn’t know Jake from Logan or Rand. I just know one of them is supposed to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. some time in February in an exhibition that figures to make them money and a few fight fans exasperated.

The fear is that the YouTubers are poised to become the future face of the game. From this corner, that’s a future that won’t last long. But Garcia is the potential counter. He has a real chance at putting some reality back in the virtual. Can he? Will he?

A lot will be learned Saturday in a bout that is also another sign that the 135-pound division will be boxing’s best in 2021. There’s Teofimo Lopez, Devin Haney, Gervonta Davis and Australian George Kambosos Jr. There’s still Vasiliy Lomachenko, who doesn’t figure to disappear after his loss to Lopez. The vanishing prospect of Spence-versus-Crawford makes the welterweights less interesting, even irrelevant. Crawford recently tweeted that, bleep it, he’d go back to lightweight. He, too, can see that things look a lot more interesting at 135 than 147.

On Saturday, the lightweight division’s many possibilities may continue to unfold. For Garcia (20-0, 17 KOs), it’s a risky step, mostly because Campbell (20-3, 16 KOs) knows what he’s doing. In his only world-title shots, the Brit lost a unanimous decision to Lomachenko and a split decision to Jorge Linares.  He also lost a split decision to Yven Mendy nearly five years ago.

Campbell, 33, has been hit by punches from angles never seen by the unbeaten Garcia, who is coming off four straight stoppages, the last two in the first round. Campbell is a good body puncher. His pressure figures to back up Garcia, who has never shown he can fight off his back foot.

More important, perhaps, Campbell has never been stopped. He’s tough, a seasoned fighter against a young one who has never gone 12 rounds. The 22-year-old Garcia has gone 10 rounds twice, both in 2018.

For Campbell, the fight looks like A Last Chance. For Garcia, it’s A Beginning.

The pick: A Beginning.

Garcia’s punches travel at a rate never seen by Campbell. He still won’t see them, especially the left which will land more than once for Garcia, who will win a significant measure of proof along with untold numbers of additional social-media followers in a seventh-round TKO. 

By Norm Frauenheim-

One more week to go. A forgettable year is ending. Good-bye, good-riddance, 2020. But any farewell is worth a look back. Besides, Saturday is Boxing Day in Britain, Canada and other countries. Not sure about the name’s genesis.

Historically, it’s supposed to be a time to give money collected in Christmas boxes to the poor. Yet these days, it’s also a bank holiday. That sounds a little bit like an oxymoron. Nobody goes to the bank for charity. Then again, Boxing Day in this country could mean pay-per-view. Still, it’s as good an opportunity as any for a last look.

The good, the bad and the silly:

Fighter Of The Year: Tyson Fury. The heavyweight champ did exactly what he said he would on a memorable night on Feb. 22 in a rematch with Deontay Wilder. Fury talks a good game. He executes an even better one. He went straight at Wilder, confusing him and dropping him twice. Wilder’s corner threw in the towel midway through the seventh.

Fighter Of The Year, Honorable Mention: Teofimo Lopez. The lightweight champ displayed poise, patience, and – in the end – power for a unanimous decision on Oct. 17 over Vasiliy Lomachenko, No. 1 in several pound-for-pound polls. It propelled Lopez to his first ranking among the pound-for-pound top 10. Expect him to be there for a long time in an emergence that could put could put in contention for the top spot in 2021.

Best Music For A Ring Walk: Fury entered the ring to Crazy, Patsy Cline’s country classic. It was an acknowledgement of Fury’s own battle with depression. But it also foretold how Wilder would behave for weeks after the crushing defeat. He went crazy. Wilder blamed his comic book costume – an armored medieval-like number for fatigue in his own ring walk. Then, he went for weeks before firing trainer Mark Breland for throwing in the towel. Then, he alleged his water bottle was spiked and Fury’s gloves were loaded. Crazy.

Fight Of The Year: Jose Zepeda vs. Ivan Baranchyk The junior-welterweight bout on Dec. 12 would have been a Fight of the Year in almost any year. There were eight knockdowns over five rounds. Up and down, it went, a dizzy drama from start to finish. Zepeda, down twice in the first round, got up a total of four times, finishing Baranchyk with a right-left combo. Baranchyk, unconscious as he fell, landed on the canvas on the back his head. His right leg was pinned at wrenching angle beneath him. It was crazy. It was stunning.

Knockout Of The Year: See Fight Of The Year.

Welcome Back: Errol Spence Jr. Questions followed Spence into the ring on Dec. 5 for the first time since the welterweight champion was thrown through the windshield of a Ferrari as it flipped in midair in a frightening accident in October, 2019. Spence answered them all, scoring a unanimous decision over a dangerous Danny Garcia.

Think Again: Spence’s successful return seemed to re-ignite talk about a 147-pound showdown with Terence Crawford. But Spence quickly threw cold water on the speculation, however, in an interview before Canelo Alvarez’ beatdown of UK super-middleweight Callum Smith on Dec. 19. For the fight to happen, Spence said, he would have to get the lion’s share of the total purse. A 60-40 or 70-30 split, he told DAZN. Translation: He’s not fighting Crawford, at least not any time soon.

Prospect Of The Year: Edgar Berlanga Jr. The 23-yerar-old super-middleweight tweeted he would have knocked out Callum Smith “within six rounds” on the night Canelo scored a 12-round decision over the super-middleweight champ in A San Antonio MISMATCH. Who’s going to argue? Berlanga is perfect. That’s perfect, as in 16 fights, 16 victories, 16 first-round knockouts.

The Debating Game: There’s no end to it. Who’s pound-for-pound No. 1? Canelo or Crawford? Depends on the network. ESPN has Crawford on top of its poll. DAZN ranks Canelo No. 1. The debate is really about the two networks. Crawford has been fighting on ESPN. Canelo sued in a split with promoter Oscar De La Hoya and DAZN. De La Hoya is gone, but Canelo’s still fought on DAZN.

Year’s Biggest Loser: Pay-per-view. Lots of numbers get reported. But the sources are never identified. Be skeptical. It’s safe to say the PPV market has been slammed by a Pandemic that has lot boxing’s traditional customers struggling to pay the rent.

Year’s Biggest Winner: Top Rank’s Bob Arum. At 89, he still understands the market place better than anyone. Pay-per-view is the wrong model for tough times. Throughout the Pandemic, Arum has kept his cards in the Bubble and off pay-per-view. It’s time to preserve the customer base. A PPV price tag for forgettable fights only chases away potential buyers.
Happy Boxing Day.

By Norm Frauenheim–

A media call with Gennadiy Golovkin this week was preceded by a warning not to ask a question. The question. Don’t ask about Canelo Alvarez, the electronic missive said. You will be muted.

Give me liberty or give me muted.

Saying no to reporters is a little bit like ordering lions not to eat red meat. If not defiance, it often ensures an artful attempt at a round-about way to ask the prohibited without mentioning the letter-of-the law.

But there was nothing artful and surely no defiance during a Zoom session a few days before GGG’s return to the ring Friday night against Kamil Szeremeta (21-0, 5 KOs) in Hollywood, Fla.

Promoter Eddie Hearn answered questions about Canelo. But Hearn’s history tells you he’ll talk about almost anything. After all, he once promoted Logan Paul. Meanwhile, Golovkin (40-1-1, 35 KOs) was asked about his future. (Hint, hint). He was asked about his legacy. (Hint, hint, hint).

He never went there. Not once. He later was quoted about Canelo in a story reported by AFP, the international press service headquartered in Paris.

“I don’t think about this because I’m tired of thinking about it,” Golovkin told AFP. “It’s been over two years that we’ve been throwing this around. It’s not my fault that this fight has not taken place. Currently, it’s too early to say, but there is a possibility this fight might never happen.”

Done. Enough said. For once, a prohibition on one question makes sense. There nothing left to say about GGG-Canelo 3. No outrage necessary, mostly because a third GGG-Canelo fight is way beyond its past-due date.

The question lingers this week only because of the DAZN schedule. By coincidence or not, GGG’s middleweight title defense (DAZN/5 p.m.ET/2 p.m. PT) in his first fight in 14 months is followed 24 hours later by Canelo (53-1-2, 36 KOs) in a super-middleweight bout against Callum Smith (27-0, 19 KOs) Saturday (DAZN/8 p.m.ET, 5 p.m. PT) in San Antonio. The scheduling is a sign that DAZN still wants a return on GGG and its initial investment in Canelo, who is now a free agent after suing both the streaming network and his former promoter, Oscar De La Hoya.

“I really think the challenge he wants is Canelo Alvarez,’’ said Hearn, who will be in San Antonio Saturday as Smith’s promoter.

But, Hearn said, “a lot has to happen.’’

Maybe too much.

From the looks of it, GGG is in terrific condition. He stepped on the scale Friday at a sculpted 159.2 pounds, safely under the 160 mandatory. He’s never missed weight. Truth is, there’s been any doubt that he ever would. GGG has been the consummate pro. But a scale isn’t a clock. GGG is 38. Presumably, he’ll be near or at 39 the next time he fights. His birthday is April 8. His hourglass is running out of prime time.

Meanwhile, Canelo is 30. He’ll be 31 on July 18. Best: A couple of prime-time years are still on Canelo’s clock. But the scale indicates he has moved up and beyond middleweight. There’s a reason he’ll be at super-middleweight (168) in his first fight since his 11^th-round stoppage of Sergey Kovalev at light-heavyweight (175) more than a year ago (Nov. 2, 2019).

“I personally don’t see Canelo coming back to 160,’’ Hearn said.

The question, then, is whether GGG, a natural middleweight, can ever really fight at 168. Then again, that’s a question that Canelo might have to answer Saturday against the unbeaten Smith.

It’s hard not to conclude that GGG and Canelo missed the optimum moment for a decisive third fight. They fought to a controversial split-draw in September 2017. Canelo won a debatable majority decision in September 2018. The third fight, a trilogy’s definitive chapter, should have happened a year later, September 2019. But it didn’t because of personal animosity. The contempt is mutual and real.

Perhaps, big money can change that. But an opportunity has been missed, more by Canelo than GGG. Canelo’s claim on pound-for-pound supremacy is attached to skepticism from fans who argue that Canelo did not beat GGG decisively, if at all.  A chance to deliver the proof was there in 2019, Pre-Pandemic, at a time when Canelo was improving and GGG appeared to be in decline.

Now? Who knows? Or who cares?

From a historical perspective, there’s a parallel. In September 1981, Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns, then welterweights, fought one of the most memorable bouts ever. Leonard, then 25, beat the 23-year-old Hearns, scoring a fourteenth-round TKO in an outdoor ring on the tennis courts behind Las Vegas’ Caesars Palace. The fight begged for a rematch. Begged for a trilogy. But it took nearly eight years for even a rematch to happen, in part because Leonard retired and then came back because of a detached retina.

But they had lost their moment. Time robbed them of it. By today’s standards, they were still young. Leonard was 33; Hearns was 30. But the fight at super-middleweight, also at Caesars Palace, was a bust. It was a draw, despite two knockdowns. Hearns floored Leonard, once in the third and again in the eleventh. But it was more than controversial. It was forgettable.

Not worth asking about, either.

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 11^th-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. 

By Norm Frauenheim–

A business always in search of an audience moves on to Errol Spence-Danny Garcia one week after Mike Tyson-Roy Jones Jr. left questions about where it is headed:

Back to the future.

Or back to nowhere.

For now, at least, it might not be limited to either-or. There are other potential options, like say a stop at the senior-citizen center. A dangerous sport, one seemingly limited to the young and fearless, drew a huge audience last Saturday for a couple of fighters older and vulnerable. Only their name recognition hasn’t eroded. The numbers don’t lie.

I called Tyson-Jones, an exhibition featuring a couple guys in their early fifties, “mostly frivolous.” I was wrong. Nothing frivolous about a reported 1.59 million pay-per-view buys and counting. At $49.99-a-buy, that’s $74.985 million and counting. That’s some serious business.

Spence and Garcia, who are a couple of decades younger, won’t approach that number, especially at a pay-per-view price tag $25 more than the Tyson-Jones fee. At $74.99, it’s hard to guess how many potential PPV customers just won’t buy. Even at the more reasonable price offered by the Tyson-Jones promoter, it’s safe to say that most in the Tyson-Jones audience won’t reach into their pocket.   

Too expensive? Maybe. Still, the most optimistic guess is that the Spence-Garcia welterweight bout this Saturday on Fox will get a fraction of the buys that Tyson-Jones did. Plug in your own guesstimate here. But the reason for the expected small fraction exposes a perilous fault line in today’s boxing business.

There are no proven stars. The potential stars remain unproven, because they don’t fight each other anymore. There’s nothing new about that statement. But the numbers for Tyson-Jones, an exhibition in nostalgia, punctuates it with some powerful evidence. And urgency.

Maybe, Terence Crawford-versus-Spence emerges as a realistic possibility, post-Pandemic, from the Spence-Garcia fight on the Dallas Cowboys homefield in Arlington, Tex. But there are a couple of big ifs attached to that one. Spence has to win while also looking like the fighter he was before he was thrown from his Ferrari in October 2019. He hasn’t fought since then.

Garcia might have been at his best at a lighter weight, 140 instead of 147, but he’s been a giant killer and his counter left could do some real damage in early rounds when a tentative Spence is still trying to regain familiarity with his old work place.

Meanwhile, more senior citizens are bound to get out of their rockers for just a chance at a fraction of the money collected by Tyson, whose purse was reported to be $13 million. Call the bout an exhibition. Call it two guys in a brawl at a backyard barbecue, Snoop Dog’s apt description. Call if whatever. They didn’t pay Monopoly money. The cash real, enough to buy a lot of ribs.

Before Tyson-Jones, Oscar De La Hoya said he would watch carefully. De La Hoya, who turns 48 on Feb. 4, has been talking about a comeback. He had to like the numbers he saw from Tyson-Jones. He could have seen a new revenue stream for his company, Golden Boy Promotions, since the split with Canelo Alvarez.

Already, there are headlines about Evander Holyfield calling out Tyson for a rematch. After all, Holyfield still has one ear to give. There’s Buster Douglas, too, in what would be the inevitable rematch of his 1990 stunner over Tyson, one of the biggest upsets in the last century.

For a few years, there are endless possibilities. No telling what would happen to the rules. Endless possibilities there too. The Tyson-Jones rules were written to prohibit a knockout. In a few more years, a state commission might have to include a rule that you can’t hit your opponent over the head with a cane. OK, I’m getting carried away.

But the point is this: Boxing among seniors with name recognition and notoriety is not sustainable. The business goes nowhere without the younger generation that will fight this Saturday night. The young guns were there in the late 1970s and into the 1980s.

An aging Muhammad Ali fought a wrestler in Tokyo in 1976. George Foreman fought five guys in Toronto in 1975. But the circus came and went, mainly because Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Roberto Duran and Thomas Hearns were there and preparing to fight each other through an era as rich as any in history.

It’s time for history to repeat itself. If it doesn’t, only the business will be history.  

By Norm Frauenheim—

It’s not exactly clear what Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. will be doing Saturday night. Best guess: It’s part boxing, part nostalgia and mostly frivolous.

But the circus never loses its appeal, especially if the pay-per-view money buys a few laughs. Not enough of those these days. Twelve-ounce gloves, eight two-minute rounds, and no official winner, all for $49.95.

The California State Athletic Commission also has included no knockouts in rules and regs for an exhibition that might have been a cellar fight, so-called during an era when boxing was mostly an underworld pursuit.

The no-KO rule sounds like a necessary precaution — the legal fine print perhaps — for a couple of legends who are a couple of decades beyond their head-knocking best. Tyson is 54, Jones 51. But the KO prohibition is also absolutely ridiculous, especially for Tyson, whose feared identity has always been defined by scary power.

No KO chance, no real drama, fewer PPV buys.

The California Commission (CSAC) knows that, of course. That’s why executive director Andy Foster offered an explanation when updated rules were reported this week.

“So, technically, there won’t be a winner unless a knockout somehow occurs, or either fighter is deemed unfit to continue,’’ Foster said.

Somehow is the operative word here. Triller, the exhibition’s promoter, responded, saying that a KO could happen. Of course. The only way to prohibit one is to prohibit the exhibition altogether.

“A knockout is allowed,” Triller co-owner Ryan Kavanaugh told Variety, a show-biz publication that will never be confused with The Ring.  “We heard someone say there’s no knockouts. A knockout is absolutely allowed.  …

If someone’s bleeding, the fight’s not going to stop.”

Kavanaugh also had his own explanation for 12-ounce gloves instead of the usual 10-ounce.

“That’s like putting in an extra Kleenex between two trucks crashing,” he said.

Also, there will be judges, although they won’t be working for the Commission. They won’t even be in the building, the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. They’ve been appointed by the World Boxing Council. Former women’s great Christy Martin, ex-light-heavyweight champion Chad Dawson and former lightweight and junior-middleweight champ Vinny Pazienza will judge from a studio. No franchise belt for the winner. But there is a WBC title, the Frontline Battle Belt, which will honor Black Lives Matter, also inscribed on the belt.

If reports about the purses are accurate, they’re astonishing. Reportedly, Tyson will collect $10 million, Jones $3 million. Remember, when this exhibition was announced it was supposed to be

for charity.

Triller also announced Wednesday that DraftKings is the event’s “official sports-betting partner.” However, sports books reportedly began to take down the line Thursday, an expectation perhaps of further controversy. Off-shore betting sites had Tyson as a slight favorite over Jones, who held titles from 160 to 175 pounds and took a heavyweight title from John Ruiz in March 2003.

The wager here: Fatigue. The hope: Both fighters get tired before they can land a knockout punch. Call it a safe bet.

By Norm Frauenheim–

The dimensions to Terence Crawford’s dynamic versatility often looks to be unlimited. Within the ropes, he has all the angles. Left-handed to righthanded, there’s power and poise, all wrapped within an edgy, defiant persona.

Like him. Fear him. Avoid him. This Bud is not for everyone. But he’s impossible to ignore, especially in a sport populated with fewer and fewer performers who know how to close the show. Name one other than Crawford.

Canelo Alvarez? Naoya Inoue? Yeah, maybe. Stoppages are part of their job description.

But nobody has that predatory instinct, evident in both eyes and in each hand, at the very moment when an opponent is hurt and ready to fall. It’s a reason to watch. Crawford defines the ring’s so-called controlled violence better than anyone in his generation. Nobody controls that violence more skillfully. Nobody finishes with such deadly efficiency, either. Kell Brook still doesn’t know what hit him.

But the supreme control that Crawford exerts within the ropes isn’t always apparent outside of them. It’s an irony, a paradox, perhaps. But it’s not exactly a new one. Politics, promoters and time have always been there, been in the way. They are there for Crawford, now at a career crossroads.

Controversy has raged since his fourth-round stoppage of Brook Saturday in a bout that furthered his claim on the pound-for-pound’s top spot. He can’t finish the debate. Then again, who can? That’s why it’s called a debate. It’s a parlor game. For Crawford, the ongoing argument doesn’t rage so much about whether his No.-1 claim is credible. It is and — for now – he has the last word. The question is how to strengthen that claim, along with his Hall of Fame resume.

From this corner, he passes the eye test. He’s No. 1. But the record says something else. Consider Brook. His skillset is a lot more faded than his name. If Canelo is impressive against Callum Smith on Dec. 19 in his first fight in more than a year, the pound-or-pound momentum figures to shift in his favor.

For Crawford, the argument continues to be Errol Spence Jr and/or Manny Pacquiao. Only against one or both can he further his pound-for-pound argument. In the immediate wake of the Brook victory, he said wanted Pacquiao, whose name brings big money and international attention. Mention Pacquiao, however, and fans think 42. That’s how old the Filipino Senator will be on Dec. 17. Of course, Crawford is expected to be a 42-year-old man.

That turns to the debate to where it has always been:

Spence.

From the fans perspective, Spence-Crawford has to happen. Crawford’s credibility hinges on it. Boxing’s credibility depends on it. But there’s a potential problem. Actually, there are a couple.

Problem One: The demand for Crawford-Spence is as loud now as ever, precipitated by Crawford’s knockout of Brook and the Dec. 5 date between Spence and Danny Garcia. The demand’s tone, however, assumes that Spence will be the same fighter he was before his scary car crash in Dallas October 10, 2019. Nobody has seen Spence answer an opening bell since then. Then, there’s the accomplished Garcia, no soft touch. Remember, Garcia upset Amir Khan and Lucas Matthysse when nobody thought he had a chance. Garcia has been at his best when he’s overlooked. Let’s just hold our breath, wait and see.

Problem Two: Even if Spence wins and looks like the welterweight we remember, boxing’s promotional rivalries might make the fight impossible. Crawford is under contract until next October, according to multiple reports. Spence is a PBC client. Spence is also a big welterweight. He’s already talking about a jump to middleweight in a bid to fight Canelo, who faces Smith at super-middle.

Noisy signs of a Crawford-Top Rank split have been apparent for a week. Top Rank’s Bob Arum ripped Crawford for not being a better self-promoter in a story reported by The Athletic.

“He’s got to promote like [Teofimo] Lopez does. He’s got to promote like Shakur [Stevenson] does… like [Floyd] Mayweather did, like [Manny] Pacquiao did.” Arum told The Athletic. “If he doesn’t, then who the f–k needs him? He may be the greatest fighter in the world, but, hey, I ain’t going bankrupt promoting him.

“The question is, ‘Do we want to keep him?’ I could build a house in Beverly Hills on the money I’ve lost on him in the last three fights, a beautiful home. Nobody questions Crawford’s innate, tremendous ability. By beating a naturally bigger guy [in Kell Brook], decisively, that’s a big statement that’s he’s making. The question is, ‘Does he pay the bills?’ Look, you can have the greatest opera singer in the world. If the fans don’t support it, you’re out of business.”

Arum suggested that Crawford is a virtuoso without an audience. The next day, Crawford countered on The Ak and Barak Show.

“Personally, if he feels that way, he can release me now,’’ Crawford said on the Sirius XM show. “He can just release me.’’

He can. But an outright release is not Arum’s history.

Mikey Garcia sued him in April 2014. At the time Garcia was 26, unbeaten and a fighter with a pound-for-pound future. The lawsuit put him on the shelf for about two-and-a-half years. His career stalled. Garcia, a four-division champion, lost at welterweight in a one-sided, disappointing performance against Spence.

Now, Garcia wants a fight with Pacquiao. But time is an issue.

Garcia is 33, same as Crawford.

Crawford can’t afford to wait. On the career clock, he’s in prime time. Maybe, he could try to do what Floyd Mayweather did. Mayweather bought his way out of a contract with Top Rank after he said no to an $8-million offer to fight Antonio Margarito. The buyout cost him $750,000. Turns out, it was a brilliant investment. Eleven years later, Mayweather was the world’s richest athlete with a billion dollars in career earnings.

A key difference was time. Mayweather gave himself some. He was 29 when he bought himself out of his Top Rank deal. On Crawford’s clock, the time to move looks a lot like right now.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Terence Crawford, not known for wearing his heart on his sleeve, wore it on his face instead. There it was on a mask that could have been a billboard.

P4P, pound-for-pound, repeated and emphasized in black across white cloth. It was bold messaging impossible to mistake, especially for Kell Brook or anybody else tempted to interpret the body language in boxing’s faceoff ritual.

Crawford plans to state his case.

Or, at least, restate it Saturday in his first appearance during a Pandemic that has shuffled and re-shuffled the pound-for-pound debate.

It changes by the week.

Vasiliy Lomachenko gets knocked off in a loss to Teofimo Lopez. Naoya Inoue wins easily, knocking out an overmatched Jason Moloney. Gervonta Davis makes a bid for consideration with a stoppage of accomplished Leo Santa Cruz. Devin Haney puts himself in the conversation with a thorough decision over faded Yuriorkis 

Gamboa. Canelo Alvarez puts himself back on the board, formally splitting with promoter Oscar De La Hoya amid plans to fight somebody, reportedly Callum Smith, in mid-December.

It’s intriguing. Contentious, too.

At the top of the pound-for-pound scale, there are three – Crawford, Canelo and Inoue. There’s a good argument for any of the three, reasonable enough to argue that the top spot should be vacant until somebody delvers a convincing performance.

Enter Crawford, who takes his turn at the bully pulpit against Brook on ESPN in the Bubble at the MGM Grand’s Conference Center in Las Vegas.

“I’ve always felt that I’m Number One, pound-for-pound, in the world,” Crawford said, mask and message still in place, during a news conference Wednesday. “This is what I do.”

Crawford, a leading pound-for-pound contender for the last couple of years, has been criticized for the quality – specifically the lack of it – in his opposition since the former lightweight champion jumped from junior-welterweight to welter in June 2018 against Jeff Horn.

It’s the kind of criticism often attached to any claim on the pound-for-pound’s top spot. That’s why it’s called a debate. Roy Jones Jr. was dogged by the criticism throughout much of his brilliant career, which once included a 2002 hip-hop lyric and career slogan: Ya’all Must’ve Forgot. Viewed through history’s unerring vision, it’s unforgettably clear today. Jones dominated, especially in 1994 when he scored a dazzling decision over dangerous James Toney in a super-middleweight bout. There was simply nobody better.

It’s hard to know whether Crawford will be seen the same way one day. Boxing’s balkanized rivalries might mean the Top Rank-promoted Crawford will never face anybody on PBC’s (Premier Boxing Champions) deep welterweight roster – Errol Spence Jr., Danny Garcia, Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter.

Before Spence’s scary car crash in October 2019, there was talk – urgent talk – about Spence-Crawford. It had to happen. Now? Who knows? In another bout with potential pound-for-pound significance, Spence returns for the first time since the crash on Dec. 5 against Garcia. It’s no tune-up. Spence calls himself The Truth. We’ll get the truth, post-accident, in about three weeks.

Crawford had an interesting comment during a Zoom session about Spence and whether his career hinges on a showdown with the Dallas welterweight. Crawford wasn’t sure. He was asked: If there’s no fight with Spence in 2021, is there a chance it’ll never happen?

“Yeah, it might,” Crawford said. “It might. You know, but like I said, I never really felt like I really needed Errol Spence for my legacy or my career. You know, I’ve accomplished so much in the sport of boxing that, you know, I really didn’t need him.

“You know, yes, I needed him for my legacy at the welterweight division and becoming a two-time, undisputed champion at two different weight classes. But if that fight don’t happen, I don’t feel like, you know, it’ll hurt my legacy. It just hurts the legacy of (me in) the welterweight division.”

Like the rest of boxing, it sounds as if he’ll wait and see how Spence looks against Garcia. There’s nothing else Crawford can do, especially against Brook, a sudden star when he upset Porter more than six years ago.

Since then, he lost to Gennadiy Golovkin in a jump to middleweight and then to Spence in a move back to welter. He suffered a fractured eye socket in each. Brook, who has also fought at junior-middleweight, is bigger than Crawford. The power in his right hand is dangerous.

“He’s never faced a fighter like me,’’ said Brook, who said he has always been prepared for Crawford’s quicksilver way of switching from orthodox to southpaw and back.

For Crawford, the task is to prove there is simply no fighter like him at any weight. His mask says he will.

By Norm Frauenheim—

Boxing during the Pandemic will be remembered for more than postponements, life in a bubble and eroding wages. There’s risk, which means winners and losers in a shuffle that figures to alter the look – the very faces — of a game fighting to move into a post-Pandemic era.

Four Winners

No. 1: Teofimo Lopez. His upset of Vasiliy Lomachenko puts him on top of this list. He’s poised to be the game’s biggest star after his career-changing performance. He won by a decision, which appeared to be the most unlikely way to beat the skilled Lomachenko. The versatile Lopez is comfortable in the ring and in front of the camera. That combo will be very hard to beat.

No. 2: Naoya Inoue. He’s been called the next Manny Pacquiao. The Next in boxing is like The Next in any other sport. There’s never been another Muhammad Ali or Roberto Duran. But the Japanese bantamweight champ lights up a ring with singular speed and power. He doesn’t have Pacquiao’s back story or the Filipino Senator’s political ambitions. But he is as much fun to watch as Pacquiao was in his early days.

No. 3: Gervonta Davis. His KO last Saturday of Leo Santa Cruz is a Knockout-of-the-Year contender. His dangerous power is dynamic, in the ring and at the box-office. It stops, it sells. There are questions. His misadventures outside of the ring continue to threaten his career. If he can continue to show the poise and discipline he had against Santa Cruz, however, anything to everything looks possible, including a huge fight with Lopez.

No. 4: Shakur Stevenson. He was the first known name to enter the bubble and defend his featherweight title last June in a predictably one-sided victory, a sixth-round stoppage, over Puerto Rican Felix Caraballo in June. His well-balanced skillset is as deadly as it is thorough, perfect for post-Pandemic pound-for-pound contention.

Four Losers

No. 1: Deontay Wilder. He blames everybody and everything but himself for a career gone awry last February in brutal rematch loss to Tyson Fury. His social-media rant last week is embarrassing.  It’s loaded with conspiracy theories. From altered gloves to a spiked water bottle, it’s all there. What’s missing is accountability. Wilder can be entertaining. Yet, his rant sounds like a desperate cry from a fighter who hasn’t turned the loss into a valuable lesson. He’s one dimensional, a heavyweight champ seemingly left with nowhere to go.

No. 2: Lomachenko. There’s a reason for weight classes. Lomachenko went a few too many notches on the scale above his optimum weight. He’s a natural featherweight. His move to lightweight led to injuries, including his shoulder. He underwent surgery during the week after Lopez. There are fights for him at featherweight or perhaps junior-lightweight. But big money won’t be there.

No. 3: Mikey Garcia: Once a leading pound-for-pound contender, Garcia has been idle throughout the Pandemic since his decision in February over Jessie Vargas, a comeback after a disappointing loss to Errol Spence Jr. in March 2019. Garcia had hoped to fight Pacquiao, but COVID eliminated that possibility. Garcia also had once been seen as possibility in a dream fight against Lomachenko when both were at featherweight. It didn’t happen. At 32, Garcia has beginning to slip out of sight, out of mind from a business that is moving on.

No. 4: Canelo Alvarez. A $280-million lawsuit against streaming service DAZN and promoter Oscar De La Hoya has put him on the shelf for who-knows-how-long. Only the lawyers are busy. He’s idle. He hasn’t fought in a year. Fair-or-not, it’s impossible to defend his pound-for-pound claim without a fight.

Four On The Waiting List

No. 1: Devin Haney. His number is about to be called. He finally gets his chance to crash the shuffle at the top of the game with a bout Saturday night on DAZN in a lightweight bout against Yuriorkis Gamboa, whose reflexes have faded a lot more than his name. The bout is a mismatch, but it is chance for Haney to test a surgically-repaired shoulder in his first fight in nearly a year. “All eyes are on me,’’ he said Thursday. “It’s my time to show up and show out.’’

No. 2: Oleksandr Usyk: He was a great cruiserweight – maybe the best ever. But there are still questions about whether he belongs in the heavyweight division. He scored a decision last Saturday over nine-time loser Dereck Chisora, but it wasn’t easy.

No.3: Terence Crawford. The unbeaten welterweight makes his first appearance during the Pandemic on Nov. 14 against Kell Brook, a former welterweight who had been fighting at junior-middleweight and middleweight. It’s an interesting fight. It’s also Crawford’s first fight since a TKO of Egidijus Kavaliauskas last December. Idle doesn’t win many arguments. For Crawford, Brook is a chance to re-assert his pound-for-pound credentials.

No. 4 Spence: The unbeaten welterweight is back from a scary car crash in October 2019. He faces Danny Garcia on Dec. 5 on the Dallas Cowboys homefield in Arlington, Tex. It would be a risky fight no matter when or what the circumstances. For Spence, however, that risk represents the opportunity that is changing the face of the game.

By Norm Frauenheim—

From presidential to pound-for-pound, it’s the political season. The first will conclude, hopefully, in a few days. Only relief will be unanimous at the end of a presidential bout with more low blows and cheap shots than rules and decorum.

The other will continue, as contentious as it is entertaining. Actually, the pound-for-pound campaign is just starting all over again, re-ignited a couple of weeks ago by Teofimo Lopez’ upset of Vasiliy Lomachenko.

Lopez’ victory in a compelling lightweight bout knocked a leading, longtime contender out of the debate. Lomachenko had been No. 1 or No. 2 in virtually all of the pound-for-pound ratings. But his loss shuffled the deck, moving Lopez into the argument for the first time with a ranking among the Top 10’s second five.

It also left Canelo Alvarez alone and idle at No. 1.

Idle is the issue. Time is the question. How long? How long will Canelo’s lawsuit against streaming-service DAZN and promoter Oscar De La Hoya keep him out of the ring?

There are no victories in inactivity. It’s fair to argue that Canelo should not be penalized because of legal process. But he filed the lawsuit. Fair or not, inactivity is an unwanted consequence. Nevertheless, a prolonged stretch outside of the ring will only erode his claim on No. 1.

Only a current, convincing argument keeps you in the debate. Canelo doesn’t have one. The middleweight champion’s last fight was almost exactly a year ago –  an 11^th-round stoppage of light-heavyweight Sergey Kovalev on Nov. 2, 2019 in Las Vegas.

Since then, a speculated bout with super-middleweight Billy Joe Saunders never happened because of the Pandemic. Then, there was the Canelo lawsuit for $280 million in damages. It’s a huge number, all adding up to potential complications that could keep the lawyers in court and Canelo out of the ring for who-knows-how-long.

Meanwhile, the pound-for-pound contenders and wannabes will fight, each hoping to deliver a performance convincing enough to further their own claim. Two of the contenders will be in the ring Saturday.

In Las Vegas, there is top-five contender Naoya Inoue in his Top Rank debut and his first appearance since his Fight-of-the-Year performance against Nonito Donaire, also last November. Inoue, appropriately nicknamed The Monster for a Halloween-night fight, faces Australian Jason Moloney. Inoue is supposed to win. Still, it’s an interesting bout, in part because Moloney is the bigger fighter. He started at junior featherweight (122 pounds) before moving down to bantam (118).

There’s a reason for weight classes. Inoue, a former junior-flyweight (108) champion, suffered a fractured eye socket in his dramatic victory over Donaire at 118 pounds. That might have been a red flag in Inoue’s attempt to move up the scale. We’ll see. If Inoue emerges unscathed and delivers a big victory, however, his pound-for-pound cred only strengthens.

Meanwhile in London, Oleksandr Usyk has an opportunity to prove he belongs among the top five pound-for-pound contenders and in the heavyweight division. Usyk faces Dereck Chisora at Wembley Arena. Usyk, who can twist his face into a scary Halloween mask, ranks as one of the best cruiserweights ever. But his heavyweight debut in a seventh-round TKO of Chazz Witherspoon Oct. 13, 2019 in Chicago left questions. Usyk can answer and reaffirm his right to pound-for-contention.

Then at the Alamodome in San Antonio, there is pound-for-pound wannabe Gervonta Davis in a 130-pound pay-per-view fight (Showtime) against Leo Santa Cruz in what might be the best Halloween offering. Davis is younger. He turns 26 on Nov. 7, a week after the fight. He possesses more power than Santa Cruz, 32, who was at his best at featherweight.  Davis is bigger.

Does Santa Cruz still have the wheels and energy to take Davis into the 12^th and final round for what would likely be a victory on the scorecards? Can he elude Davis’ power? Can he endure it?

Davis thinks not. So, too, do the oddsmakers, who make Davis a minus-700 favorite, meaning he has an 87.50 percent chance of winning.

“I think the winner should be in the top 10 of the pound-for-pound list,’’ Davis said Thursday at a news conference.

It sounds as if Davis is already campaigning for a ranking that might lead to a showdown with Lopez, who started this edition of a pound-for-pound debate that promises to get very interesting.   

By Norm Frauenheim–

There wasn’t a knockout. There wasn’t even a knockdown. The classic expected in this corner and few others did not happen. But Teofimo Lopez-Vasiliy Lomachenko was a winner for the audience it attracted and interest it continues to generate.

Boxing, forever pushed to the edge of an imagined grave by critics and abolitionists, is alive and well. Not even a pandemic can kill it.

The numbers and noise are proof. First, the numbers. Ratings for the ESPN telecast were at a three-year high for boxing. Viewership for Lopez’ upset of Lomachenko averaged 2.729 million. The audience peaked at 2.898 million. Two-million was the reported goal. But who knew? In effect, the lightweight bout was a check-up, a moment to take a long look at what has happened since COVID crashed the party.

Turns out, the patient has a heartbeat.

Post-fight, I got a call from a friend, who is as spot-on insightful as he is fearless in what he thinks about an ever-scarred game. The best thing about the fight, he said, was that it wasn’t on pay-per-view. True, true and true on so many levels.

The decision not to attach a PPV tag onto the bout was the right thing to do. It’s hard enough to pay for groceries these days. But it was also the wise thing to do. If it had been PPV, maybe the audience would have been about 100,000. Fighters, managers, promoter and network would have split meager receipts, moved on and muddled on, still clueless about the state of the game.

Now, they know there’s still a market, an audience still hungry for the right fight. With its mind-numbing preponderance of titles, acronyms and the usual cast of suspects, boxing will never be exactly healthy. That’s part of the charm. But never doubt its resiliency. Lopez-Lomachenko showed it’s still there, vibrant as ever.

In part, the public appetite for a great fight created expectations. What happened in Lopez’ unanimous decision over Lomachenko, however, won’t ever be compared to Diego Corrales’ 2005 stoppage of Jose Luis Castillo or Robert Duran’s lightweight reign. It wasn’t even a Fight of the Year.

But nothing about it diminished that appetite for more. Nearly a week after the bout, people are still talking about the 119-109 scorecard (Really?), Lopez’ arrival (A Star Is Born), Lomachenko’s slow start (Why?) and news of Lomachenko’s subsequent shoulder surgery (That’s why).

A lot of the talk is familiar, including an argument that Lomachenko’s surgery is only an excuse. If it was really an excuse, you’d think he would have mentioned it in post-fight interviews.  He didn’t. His injured right shoulder is simply the result of fighting above his natural weight. Lomachenko, a true featherweight, began to suffer injuries when he moved to 135 pounds. He first injured his right shoulder in 2018 when he won a lightweight title against Jorge Linares.

Guess here: Lopez knew that Lomachenko was vulnerable at any weight above 130. For two years, he lobbied for the fight. Then, Lopez, a lightweight about to move up to 140, looked like the bigger fighter in a dominant 12th round, a convincing finale to what had been a close bout.

Lopez won the argument. Won the future, too, with a big audience that is still talking.

By Norm Frauenheim–

It’s a fight for the times, or at least one that for a while has a chance to knock out all of the garbage that has left yesterday, today and tomorrow feeling like a precarious walk on a sharpening edge of uncertainty.

We live amid a virus that nobody wants to fight or knows how to fight. We hear politicians, separated by philosophies and plexiglass, exchanging trash talk that sends pundits reaching for blow-by-blow metaphors. The words, they say, are punches. If only they were.

Finally, the punches will be real in an expected delivery of an old craft — as true as it is dangerous — from lightweights who want to fight and know how to. Teofimo Lopez-Vasiliy Lomachenko is no metaphor. It’s figures to be as real as it gets in any era.

That’s not to say there hasn’t been some trash talk. Tension is there. But the words will in fact be settled by punches sometime after 7:30 pm ET/4:30 p.m. PT Saturday on a Top Rank card televised by ESPN from the so-called bubble, the Conference Center at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.

The bubble means masks, social distancing and the uncomfortable hope that the cough you just heard doesn’t mean that a positive test is imminent. It’ll be a relief when that bubble bursts, giving way to a time when a Lopez-Lomachenko can return to the familiar sights, sounds and ticket sales generated by a live crowd. Two-hundred-and-fifty people will be allowed inside the bubble. First-responders, friends and family will be in the socially-distanced seats for a fight that had been scheduled for May at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

It was re-scheduled and moved for the same reason that bars and restaurants have been shut down. During the Pandemic, last call has taken on new meaning that doesn’t promise much of a tomorrow. But, at least, Lopez-Lomachenko is still happening for what is expected to be a big audience. There is no pay-per-view price tag. It’s the right thing to do during days when it’s hard to pay the rent. It’s also a rare chance to attract the casual fans who don’t watch PPV boxing but might watch Lopez-Lomachenko without having to invest another $80.

It’s a fight loaded with all of the elements that can define boxing at its singular best. There’s the young Lopez, a 23-year old with Honduran roots and a cocky accent from his Brooklyn upbringing. There’s the older Lomachenko, a taciturn 32-year old Ukrainian who casts disapproving looks at Lopez like a demanding master offended by a restless apprentice.

Lopez promises a Takeover. The decorated Lomachenko, nicknamed Hi-Tech, promises a lesson. The best promise is a classic.

Put it this way: Promoter Bob Arum says Lomachenko’s versatile skillset is the best he has seen since Muhammad Ali. In a Zoom session with media this week, World Boxing Council President Mauricio Sulaiman said Lopez had “all the elements of Roberto Duran.’’

Ali and Duran, legends from different weight classes. Ali was – is — an iconic heavyweight; Duran arguably the greatest lightweight ever. They could never have met in the ring. Only in the imagination or in a video game.

On real canvas, however, Lomachenko (14-1, 10 KOs) and Lopez (15-0, 12 KOs) might play out that pound-for-pound dream. Who wins? Who know? The guess from this corner is Lomachenko, a two-time gold-medalist and probably the greatest boxer in Olympic history. Lomachenko will throw punches from angles that Lopez has never seen.

But danger rests in Lopez evident power and size. He’s a big lightweight. He’s at least one inch taller than Lomachenko, listed at 5-7. Across his shoulders, he looks bigger than the Ukrainian. It also looks and sounds as if Lopez won’t be at 135 pounds much longer. On Zoom with international media a couple of weeks ago, he talked about a jump to 140 for a possible date with either of the junior-welterweight champions, Jose Ramirez and/or Josh Taylor.

“Josh Taylor in the morning and Jose Ramirez at night,’’ said Lopez, who is known for celebrating victories with a head-over-heels back flip.

He’s talking about taking his career to some dizzy heights.

But there’s plenty of reasonable doubt about whether he’ll be doing a backflip Saturday night. Despite only 15 pro fights, Lomachenko’s amateur record is reported to be an astonishing 396-1. He has seen it all, most as the winner. His key is to elude, perhaps survive, an early assault from Lopez. The guess is that Lopez can – perhaps will – hurt Lomachenko somewhere between the first and sixth rounds.

For Lomachenko, there’s no talk of a move to junior-welterweight. He as heavy as he can be. There’s speculation he would be better off at 130 pounds or 126. There’s a lesser chance of injury. Lomachenko has undergone shoulder surgery and suffered hand injuries. He has the physical frame of true featherweight. But there’s bigger money and a more enduring legacy at lightweight, one of boxing’s original divisions.

But it’s a risk, one that was evident when Jorge Linares knocked him down in the sixth round of a bout in May 2018. Lopez has seen the knockdown. He has more power than Linares. He figures Lomachenko won’t get up if he lands the same kind of a shot. Maybe.

What’s lost amid all of the attention on Lomachenko’s brilliant tactical skill, however, is his toughness.

Lomachenko, 4-0 as a lightweight, got up and scored a 10^th-round stoppage of Linares. The guess here is that Lopez will hurt Lomachenko early. Guess here: Lopez will knock him down early. Guess here: Lomachenko gets up.

The question here is whether Lopez will have the skillset to deal with Lomachenko’s many-sided attack over the final six rounds.

The pick here: Lomachenko wins on all three scorecards, by two to three points, in a classic, a real one. 

By Norm Frauenheim-

Teofimo Lopez calls it The Takeover. Promoter Bob Arum might have another description for it.

Call it The Comeback, or at the least the beginning of one.

The Lopez-Vasiliy Lomachenko fight is a biggie in any time. It includes all of the elements necessary to create a classic. There’s Lopez’ power. There’s Lomachenko’s off-the-chart skillset. There’s just the right amount of tension between the two for some essential drama.  The stakes include pound-for-pound bragging rights. Even what’s missing is an addition. There’s no pay-per-view price tag attached to the ESPN telecast.

It’s all there, a buzz in the bubble, in a fight for a unified lightweight title next week Saturday (October 17) at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.

But there’s something else, too.

Lopez-Lomachenko takes on some added significance because of when it’s happening. It’s a milestone fight, perhaps historical for what it will say about how boxing can fight its way out of a Pandemic from hell.

“This is the biggest fight of the year,’’ Arum said this week during back-to-back Zoom sessions, first with Lopez and then Lomachenko.

We might have already witnessed the Fight of the Year – junior-welterweight Jose Zepeda’s stoppage of Ivan Baranchyk over five furious rounds and eight knockdowns last Saturday.

Zepeda-Baranchyk was spontaneous combustion. Who knew? Lopez-Lomachenko has been in the forefront of fans’ collective imagination for a while. It also been at the top of the business agenda. It offers a way back. A big part of the promotion includes 250 of those fans who will be allowed into the so-called bubble.

They will include first-responders, as well as friends and family of each fighter, in socially-distanced seats. No tickets are for sale. All COVID protocols will be enforced, Arum said.

In effect, it’s a test run, a hope and a look at how to take the next step. Boxing will only survive with live gates, paying customers instead of cardboard cutouts.

“Two-hundred-and-fifty people are better than no people at all,’’ says Lopez, who understands his COVID math.

A small crowd without infection on Saturday can lead to bigger crowds, bigger purses and the big fights that looked to be inevitable, pre-Pandemic.

“Absolutely, this is a trial run,’’ said Arum, who has been working closely with Nevada and the state’s Athletic Commission. “We hope this will lead to when we can have paying customers.’’

Specifically, Arum mentioned Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium, the Raiders’ brand new NFL address. Arum has hoped to stage Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder 3 at Allegiant. Like so much else during the Pandemic, however, the proposed second rematch has bounced around the calendar more often than Zepeda and Baranchyk were on the canvas.

Sometime in December appears to be the best hope for a fight that had been scheduled for July and then October. Put it this way: It’s a fight searching for a live gate big enough to pay the heavyweight purses. Fifteen-to-20,000 paying customers in socially-distanced seats might do it.

Much depends, however, on what Arum can’t control. The virus moves at its own unpredictable pace. It appears to be spiking all over again in some places.

But the pragmatic Arum promises to be ready. He’s not expecting a miracle, a day when COVID just disappears.

“Who the hell knows when we’ll get a vaccine,’’ he said. “One step at a time.’’

Lopez-Lomachenko is as good a step as any. 

By Norm Frauenheim-

In the bubble, out of the bubble.

It doesn’t matter where you are these days. There’s not much protection from anything. If it’s not COVID, it’s uncertainty. It’s the uncertainty that infects everyone, everything. It’s the symptom for which there is no treatment. No quarantine.

A dispiriting reminder of that came with news that UK promoter Eddie Hearn has tested positive. He announced it on his twitter account Thursday.

“Gutted to just find out I tested positive for Covid-19 today and have to leave the bubble immediately. Thankfully all other tests were negative. Heading home to rest – catch up tomorrow,’’ Hearn tweeted.

Then, he tweeted a photo of himself at work on a speed bag.

Godspeed, get well soon, Eddie.  

Hearn was at work, promoting a card Sunday featuring light-heavyweights Joshua Buatsi (12-0, 10 KOs) and Croatia’s Marko Calic (11-0, 6KOs) at Stadium MK in Milton Keynes, England.

All 12 fighters on the card, the fourth in Hearn’s Fight Camp series, tested negative. The show goes on. So, too, will the Pandemic, random and tenacious. Exhausting and seemingly endless.

There are moments when you wonder when it will end and what will be left. Boxing survives. It always does, in large part because of the energy and over-the-top confidence that Hearn and his rival promoters have for the timeless game.  Their promotional hype is annoying. But in the here and now, I miss it.  I can laugh at the hype. I can argue with it. But there’s no fighting the Pandemic. Hide and hope are the only combo in a futile fight with no good counter.

The hope is for a game that comes back as it was about seven months ago. Through Tyson Fury’s stoppage of Deontay Wilder in a heavyweight rematch on Feb. 22, boxing was in a comfortable rhythm. The trash talk was loud. The lies were outrageous. All of the usual suspects were there. The scripted chaos was comforting, or at least it looks that way now when only uncomfortable uncertainty is real.

October looms with reasons to be hopeful. Above all, there is Vasiliy Lomachenko versus Teofimo Lopez on Oct 17 in a lightweight bout loaded with pound-for-pound significance. There’s also Naoya Inoue, a three-division champion and bantamweight whirlwind last seen in a November victory over Nonito Donaire in a Fight of the Year – just about any year. A year later, Inoue is back on Oct. 31 against Jason Moloney. The Monster on Halloween. It’s a comeback party.

But Hearn’s positive test is a reminder that nobody can count on much of anything amid a Pandemic that looks to be mounting a comeback of its own this fall. Lomachenko-Lopez, Inoue-Moloney and a projected third fight between Fury and Wilder, perhaps in December, are three legs toward a recovery. But the Hearn news is reason to be wary.

It’s also reason for frustration, which Fury has begun to express at further news that the second rematch with Wilder will probably be moved from its targeted date, Dec. 19. The trilogy bout has skipped across the calendar like a flat stone on a pond. Excuse Fury if he’s lost count. Everybody has. Now, Fury, who has been training since March, says he intends to fight before the year ends. Pandemic-Slamdemic, Fury has had it.

“I’m very ready to fight right now, but the problem is I keep hearing different stories,’’ Fury told Talk Sport. “I’m supposed to be fighting against Deontay Wilder on December 19 in Las Vegas. Recently I read they’re trying to move it forward a week or back a week, but the one thing I want to announce to the world is I will be fighting in December.

“Whether it is Deontay Wilder in Las Vegas or Joe Bloggs in England, I want to fight. We are just waiting for the fight to be announced. If they put it back to next year, I want to fight now.

“I made it very, very clear that if we can’t fight in America, then I want to come back to England and have a homecoming. I’m about an hour from going AWOL. I need to know what’s happening because the dates keep getting moved. Now they’re saying December might not happen. BT Sport, if you’re listening, get your hand in your pocket and get me back home. I’m on the verge of going AWOL again.’’

Absent Without Leave is something of a euphemism, Fury’s way of saying the Pandemic’s uncertainty is about to send him back around the bend, back into the depression he has fought and still fights.

These days, there’s no escape. If the COVID doesn’t get you, the uncertainty will.   

By Norm Frauenheim–

It’s an intriguing weekend. Jermell and Jermall Charlo, maybe the most interesting brothers since the Klitschkos, are on one card, each in title fights.

Yuniel Dorticos and Mairis Briedis fight in a cruiserweight final of a concept, the World Boxing Super Series (WBSS), that somehow is back during a Pandemic that has made so much else oh-so forgettable. Josh Taylor is back for the first time in 11 months in a mandatory defense against challenger Apinun Khongsong in a London bout that could set up a long-awaited junior-welterweight showdown with Jose Ramirez.

It’s a loaded Saturday that tempts those of us – most of us – outside of the bubble to take a look. Maybe this is it, the moment when boxing begins to show it is ready to come out from behind closed doors and back under the marquee lights.

Hope springs eternal these days.

Then again, feints do, too.

Start with the Charlos, twins separated by only a vowel and six pounds. Jermell (33-1, 17 KOs) hopes to add Jeison Rosario’s (20-1-1, 14 KOs) two belts to his own, the World Council’s 154-pound belt. Jermall (30-0, 22 KOs) defends his WBC 160-pound belt against Sergiy Derevyanchenko (13-2, 10 KOs).

The Charlos are a good story. But they’re not a pay-per-view story. Not during a Pandemic or before one. Post-Pandemic, maybe.  Even before Covid, their evolving careers were short of a major bout and name recognition. Nevertheless, a PPV tag, $74.95, has been attached to their featured bouts on a Showtime card (7 p.m. ET/ 4 p.m. PT) from the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn.

Will anybody pay to watch? Put it this way: Not many have been watching bubble bouts without the PPV price tag. Blame the economy. There’s not much disposable income. No stimulus from a deadlocked Congress, either. Fan interest has declined as much as the household budget. Fewer and fewer fans are watching.

There wasn’t much marketing momentum last Saturday in Showtime’s telecast of Erickson Lubin’s dull victory over Terrell Gausha. According to Nelsen, ratings for the Lubin-Gausha-featured card averaged 116,000 viewers. It peaked at 122,000, the smallest since Showtime resumed its boxing schedule August 1.

The trend seems to say — make that scream — for a couple of terrific bouts without the PPV investment. Boxing is in desperate need of some good advertising.  The Charlo twins could do exactly that. They could retain an audience and perhaps bring back a few of those who have already left the building. But a PPV price tag threatens to keep them away, leaving the game wrapped in a buzz-less bubble.

Maybe, that changes on Oct. 17 when Vasiliy Lomachenko and Teofimo Lopez meet on ESPN in a lightweight bout loaded with pound-for-pound significance. It’s a fight still in the bubble, yet without a PPV tag.

Maybe, it only changes with what would be a surprising return of Canelo Alvarez, the leading PPV star over the last couple of years., The Athletic reported Thursday that Canelo is talking to DAZN, which he had sued along with his promoter, Oscar De La Hoya. The suit was dismissed for a technicality. A simple rewrite would restore it.  An amended lawsuit is due Monday.  According to The Athletic, DAZN is offering Canelo $20 million, about $15 million less than the per-fight purse included in his original contract with the streaming service.

Maybe, maybe. Maybe, Terence Crawford is close to a deal to fight Kell Brook on Nov. 14. Maybe, fans will be allowed to sit in socially-distanced seats for Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder 3, targeted for Dec. 19 at the brand new Allegiant Stadium, the Raiders new home in Las Vegas.

The bubble is full of more maybes than real fights. Don’t make the fans pay for the little that is real. They can’t afford it. Neither can boxing.

By Norm Frauenheim–

Being a sports fan during the pandemic from hell isn’t easy. It’s more about what’s missing than what’s really there, somewhere in the empty bubble amid seats filled with cutouts and annoying noise generated to sound like cheers.

Some things, of course, never change. I give you the Los Angeles Clippers, who were among the missing all over again this week in a vanishing act against the Denver Nuggets that was almost a nostalgic trip back to the old Clip Joint, basketball futility gone yet still not forgotten.

The Clipper fold in blowing a 3-1 lead in a best-of-seven series during the Pandemic Playoffs wasn’t pretty. For the Clippers, consolation probably rests in the circumstances of a trying time that everybody hopes to soon forget. It’ll come with an asterisk, a symbol that will mean it really doesn’t count. Yet in the here-and-now, it was almost comforting. During a time when it feels as if everything has changed, the Clippers didn’t.

They were familiar when little else is.

I mention this because it’s mid-September, a time when boxing would dominate the week. Wednesday, Sept. 16, was Mexican Independence Day. The familiar fireworks had become an annual ritual, an expectation of a major bout that began with Julio Cesar Chavez and continued with Oscar De La Hoya. It and Cinco de Mayo had become the game’s double date, a stage that belonged to the sport’s biggest stars, even if they weren’t Mexican or Mexican-American.

Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s last 10 fights, and 11 of his last 12, were on Saturdays tied to May 5 and Sept. 16. Since 2007, it’s no coincidence that two of the four top pay-per-view bouts were held on these dates, including the record setter – Mayweather’s decision over Manny Pacquiao on May 2, 2015 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.

It was a time to do business. A time, also, to prove that boxing could still stop the world, hold center stage.

But that’s missing this week. I had almost forgotten about it until I glanced at the calendar and realized that last Saturday or this Saturday was supposed to belong to Mexican middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez, who about five years ago had promised to take back the May and September dates from Mayweather.

Alvarez has fought in May and/or September seven times since his loss to Mayweather on Sept. 14, 2013 to Mayweather, also at the MGM Grand. His last fight in either month was in a victory over Danny Jacobs on May 4, 2019 at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena.

But the traditional dates have gone dark since then. First, there was the pandemic, which eliminated any chance of Canelo facing UK super-middleweight champion Callum Smith in May or September. Now a lawsuit, filed last week, against promoter Oscar De La Hoya and streaming-service network DAZN leaves Canelo and the business without a date.

Boxing needs Cinco de Mayo and Mexican Independence on Sept. 16 as much as college basketball needs March Madness. On the calendar, those were days to circle. Days to make money. Days that define.

Without them, Canelo and the business are just a couple of guys hoping for a blind date. Not much future in that.

By Norm Frauenheim–

The lawsuit isn’t a surprise. It’s been looming, brewing for at least a year in the contempt Canelo Alvarez has for Oscar De La Hoya and in mounting impatience he has for DAZN.

It finally landed, all 24 pages of it, in federal court this week in Los Angeles. From money to broken promises, it’s full of all the usual grievances and suspects.

Canelo is suing for $280 million. He wants out of his DAZN contract, a $365-million over 11 fights a couple of years ago. Then, it looked like a titanic deal and it still does, at least in terms of what seems to be happening to DAZN. It never foresaw the pandemic. Who did? But it appears to have blown a huge hole in what the streaming service had hoped to do.

DAZN looks to be sinking. In negotiations for a September fight, it’s alleged that it could no longer afford Canelo’s contracted minimum, $35-million a fight.  Canelo was reportedly offered a smaller purse and some stock in the company. It didn’t take Canelo long to figure out that the stock might soon be worth about as much as the contents of a spit bucket.

He decided to get what he could in court.  Nobody knows how long the pandemic will last and what the impact on simple households and billionaire budgets will be. Long, drawn-out legal proceedings – is there any other kind? – could end with a judgment and no payoff. In boxing terms, just another paper champion.

But Canelo has the time and the money to risk it. He’s 30, which means there are three, four, maybe as many as five more years left in his prime. Plus, he’s already wealthy, thanks in large part to DAZN. He grossed $105 million for three fights — Rocky Fielding, Danny Jacobs and Sergey Kovalev. There was no Gennadiy Golovkin, which figures to be an issue in court. DAZN invested plenty on the bet that it would happen. Fans have wanted it. But the lawsuit says a third GGG-Canelo fight is past its due date.

Time to move on. But to where? And to whom?

The guess is that Canelo has plenty in the bank, perhaps enough for him to promote himself. According to Forbes, he made $94 million in 2019, including victories over Fielding and Jacobs. Add $35 million for his victory over Kovalev in his last fight, and he earned $129 million over the last couple of years.

He’s got deep pockets. But is it enough for him to follow De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. into independent entrepreneurship? Impossible to say. De La Hoya and Mayweather split with established promoters and during eras when there was no COVID. Each found a network partnership. But it’s hard to say what happens during a time rocked only by uncertainty

Even if the money is there, it’s not clear that anybody would partner with Canelo. He has the pay-per-view numbers to say he is the biggest draw in boxing. But there’s a debate about whether he’s the world’s best fighter, pound-for-pound. There are lingering questions about whether he could in fact become the face of the game in the defining way De La Hoya and Mayweather were.

De La Hoya had good looks and fast hands. People liked him. Mayweather’s dazzling elusiveness frustrated foes and his cocky claim on being The Best Ever exasperated fans. People hated him.

In marketing terms, both De La Hoya and Mayweather knew their roles and played them, each with their own kind of genius. But Canelo’s identity has never been quite so evident. He doesn’t have De La Hoya’s smile. Unlike Mayweather, he appears to be uncomfortable with criticism from fans, who didn’t like Mayweather, yet paid for just a chance to see him get beat.

His unpopularity, even among Mexican fans, was mentioned by Julio Cesar Chavez during an interview during the before his stoppage of Kovalev. Chavez, who could do no wrong in a different Mexican era, said that not everybody likes Canelo during a new Mexican era.

Symptoms of that have been evident. Fans left Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena amid scattered boos after his draw with GGG in their first fight in 2017. Mayweather would have heard the boos and turned them into business. De La Hoya would have smiled.

Canelo doesn’t seem to know what to do.

Who to be.

It’s hard to be the face of any game if the fans aren’t sure who you are. Canelo may go his own way after the lawsuit is resolved and COVID is gone.

But will anybody follow?

By Norm Frauenheim-

It was a moment that summed up a pandemic. There was Jimmy Butler, a defining face of social-distancing as he stood all alone at the free throw line. The lane was empty. So were the seats. Butler sank the free throws. Game over.

It ended like that proverbial tree falling in the forest. Does it really make a sound if nobody hears it? It’s dutifully noted in the NBA record book. In NBA history, too. Miami’s 116-114 victory over Milwaukee Wednesday night was only the third playoff game to end at the line.

But who knew? More to the point, who cares? It’s nobody’s fault, really. The pandemic rolls on and on with no apparent end in sight. The NBA should be applauded for rigorous, responsible procedures that include regular testing and everything else that protects players, coaches and officials from COVID.

When the league resumed, it looked like a fast-break into disaster. But it hasn’t been. It’s been a disciplined model on how to deal with a health threat. The NBA is proving to be a more reliable guide than The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), a federal agency with more conflicting directives these days than Donald Trump has bleach.

But there’s an inherent problem with the NBA’s pandemic response. The league isn’t in the health business. Show biz is the NBA game. That means a close relationship with fans. But that’s hard to sustain in a so-called bubble in Orlando. The fans are represented by cardboard cut-outs. But, increasingly, fans are being cut out of the game, any game.

It’s just hard to be a fan these days. That was evident, more so than ever, in Butler’s singular moment at the line. In terms of proximity. In basketball, fans are never too far away. In normal times, Butler’s focus might have been interrupted by a raucous crowd in the baseline seats.

But they weren’t there. Cardboard doesn’t cheer. There’s only silence, which is what we’re getting from a fandom that might be losing interest.

According to reports this week, television ratings for the NBA were down 20 percent. There was an immediate reaction, a predictable knee-jerk from the crowd that blames the NBA for its walkout last week in protest of the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisc.

Politics are an easy target, especially during these turbulent times. Too easy. I’m not buying it. The real reason is a rupture in the fundamental relationship that the NBA and any other sport has with fans.

It’s no secret that ratings have been down in boxing. The fights have been hard to watch. Sustaining fans’ interest is almost impossible. A reason is the absence of a loud ringside crowd. The connection between a live crowd and the fighters is as integral to boxing as it to basketball.

Fans, fair or not, can influence the judging. More important, perhaps, is their impact on the fighters. From this socially-distanced seat, that helped explain the uneven performance from Jose Ramirez last Saturday in a decision over Viktor Postol in a key junior-welterweight fight.

In his first fight under pandemic rules, Ramirez missed the loyal fans who follow him. He supports them with water projects and money for the farm workers in Fresno, his hometown. Their allegiance and loud support for him, an intangible combination, has been hard to evaluate. But they were missing Saturday and part of him was missing, too.

Watching Ramirez made me think of something Tiger Woods said a couple of weeks ago. Woods shot a sensational 66 in the final round of The Northern in Norton, Mass.

“Obviously the energy is not anywhere near the same,” Woods told ESPN. “There isn’t the same amount of anxiety and pressure and people yelling at you and trying to grab your shirt, a hat off you. This is a very different world we live in.

“You hit good shots and you get on nice little runs, we don’t have the same energy, the same fan energy.’’

Jimmy Butler and Jose Ramirez know the feeling.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Games don’t matter much, at least they haven’t throughout about a relentless pandemic. Only the platform does. The NBA took its game off the floor and out of the bubble this week to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

It was the right thing to do.

It would have been too easy to just move on through playoffs in a season that has felt artificial. Fans are missing. So is much of the fun. There was a title at stake and still will be if the playoffs resume. But will anybody remember the eventual winner? Probably not.

What will be remembered is the way the NBA used its so-called platform to take a stand against a summer full of racial unrest. What was forgettable became memorable, thanks to the Milwaukee Bucks-led walkout Wednesday.  Not everybody agrees, of course. That’s what also makes the NBA’s fast-break move from diversion to relevance so controversial.

Politics and sports aren’t supposed to mix, or so goes the argument from those who think anyone with athletic talent surrenders their right to speak out. But tell that one to generations of athletes.

Tell it to Olympic sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who flashed the black-power slate while standing on the 1968 Mexico City medal stand as though it were a bully pulpit.

Tell it to Jackie Robinson.

Tell it to Jack Johnson

Tell it to Muhammad Ali.

Of all of them, Ali has become the historical face of protest. He’s the loud voice that sums up the reasons athletes sometimes have to use their sport and stardom as a megaphone. Ali’s sport, boxing, is an appropriate setting. As a symbol, there’s nothing quite like the ring, which is something that politicians use all the time. They talk about heavyweights and lightweights. They love to talk about in-fighting and how they fight off-the-ropes. They’ll also tell you not to confuse sports and politics.

It’s good to hear LeBron James and Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers say otherwise. Rivers attacked Donald Trump and his bucket guy, Mike Pence. The President and Vice-President talk about violence in the cities and fear in the suburbs.

“All you hear is Donald Trump and all of them talking about fear,’’ Rivers said Tuesday after a Clippers victory over Dallas. “We’re the ones getting killed.’’

Rivers’ comment made me think of Ali.

“You’re my opposer when I want freedom, you’re my opposer when I want justice,’’ he said when he changed his name from Cassius Clay to Ali and had his heavyweight title stripped for refusing to be drafted during the Vietnam War “You’re my opposer when I want equality.

“You won’t even stand up for me in America for my religious beliefs and you want me to go somewhere and fight, but you won’t even stand up for me here at home.”

During the turbulent 1960s, it was a powerful statement for a fighter who could be as cruel as he was cocky. But there was never much doubt about his timing on either side of the ropes in a battered craft that is and always will be what Mike Tyson has called it: The hurt business.

Ali knew when to jab. Knew when to counter.

Mostly, he knew when to take a stand. There’s always been an argument about where he stands among the all-time fighters. Even among the heavyweights, there’s a fair enough debate over who was the GOAT. Some say Joe Louis. Some say Ali.

But there’s never been much debate about who has had the greatest overall impact. George Foreman, stopped by Ali in 1974’s legendary Rumble In The Jungle, once told me that Louis was a better heavyweight, but that Ali was the better man.

The best ever.

By Norm Frauenheim–

Wait?

Or weight?

For David Benavidez, they are two options that sound alike and are linked by what he does after losing his super-middleweight title on the scale before his stoppage of Roamer Alexis Angulo last week.

He can wait, get back in line, fight his way back into a mandatory shot for his old title or a different one. The guess here: That wait wouldn’t be a long one. If he isn’t the world’s best 168-pound fighter right now, he soon will be.

But soon is a relative term, defined by a clock he can’t always control. Benavidez is 23. He’s growing, faster perhaps than he knows. His maturing body and metabolism will have the final say-so, no matter what he eats or how long he sits in a sauna.

For now, he’s gambling he can forestall the inevitable with a strict diet and Spartan-like discipline. He said after forcing Angulo to quit after the 10^th round that he’ll stay at super-middleweight.

In part, he blamed his weight – 2.8 pounds over the 168-pound maximum – on pre-fight changes forced by the COVID pandemic. I hear him. I’m dragging around a lot more than an extra 2.8 pounds since gyms and pools shut down. It’s hard to mask the quarantine fifteen.

“When I usually lose weight, I follow a system,’’ Benavidez said after he beat Angulo into submission at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn. “Two gallons of water, you know, on Sunday, then two on Monday. Then, you know, but I cut all that off. You know what I mean? Because I wasn’t really sure how this bubble was going to work. We were only able to work out one hour a day, for an hour.

“And I didn’t have a sauna, and really the stuff I need to cut my weight. You know what I mean? But at the end of the day, I’m a man. You know, I missed weight, so you know, I’m not making any excuses. But I’m very disappointed about that. You know, stripped of my belt, paid a huge fine. You know what I mean? But at the end of the day, I’m still undefeated.”

He protected his record (23-0, 20 KOs). That was a wise move from a young fighter smart enough to know that Angulo was heavy-handed enough to be dangerous, especially if he had entered the ring weakened by a futile attempt to make weight. Benavidez could have returned to the scale two hours later. But he said no, knowing he couldn’t shed the extra pounds. He probably won’t remain unbeaten forever. Meanwhile, there are plenty of belts.

There are reasons to think his old belt, the World Boxing Council’s version, will be available to him after a relatively short wait. Canelo Alvarez got himself in line for it in a bout against Turk Avni Yildirim, who was set for a mandatory shot at Benavidez before the scale fail.

By a 36-1 vote this week, the WBC Board of Governors granted Canelo’s request for a shot at the vacated title. I’m not sure who cast the lone dissenting vote, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was somebody who has an investment in DAZN. Canelo-versus-Yildirim? Yildirim has two losses, including one to Anthony Dirrell, who Benavidez stopped a year ago. Safe to say, DAZN wants more for its money. The streaming service has been paying Canelo $33 million a fight. Now, there are reports that he is due $40 million for his next fight.

In a third fight against Gennadiy Golovkin, may be. Against somebody named Yildirim, no way.

In large part, Benavidez hopes to stay at 168-pounds long enough for a showdown against Caleb Plant, who holds the International Boxing Federation’s super-middleweight belt. Trash-talk escalation between Benavidez and Plant fueled hopes for a fight later this year. But COVID-19 changed expectations. Now, Benavidez-Plant doesn’t figure to happen until next year. It’s also not clear whether Plant would want to fight a Benavidez without a title.

For now, at least, Benavidez needs to test to determine whether he can still make 168. That means a bout under today’s COVID-dictated protocol with a 168-pound somebody. Maybe a somebody like Avni Yildirim.

Another scale fail would dictate a move up in weight to light-heavy.

Then, Benavidez would have to wait on Plant to make the move.

Wait and weight, it’s one of boxing’s inevitable combos.

By Norm Frauenheim-

From college football to gyms, it often seems as if the world is going out of business these days. It’s the shutdown era. But David Benavidez hasn’t seen the signs. He’s back in business, or at least he will be Saturday night.

Benavidez will resume his career, fighting for the first time in nearly a year in a super-middleweight title defense against a dangerous Colombian, Roamer Alexis Angulo on Showtime in Uncasville, N.Y.

It was a fight that was supposed to happen in mid-April in Phoenix. But the pandemic forced it to a later date and out of Benavidez’ hometown. Without any hometown fans allowed to be in the seats, it would have been hard to sell it as a homecoming anyway.

For now, at least, home is wherever and whenever Benavidez can finally answer another opening bell, this time in a fight to reignite the momentum he had after a stoppage of Anthony Dirrell last September at Staples Center in Los Angeles.

“Right now, I just want to get back into it,’’ said Benavidez, who at 23 is among the brightest young stars in an emerging generation expected to lead boxing into whatever awaits us in the post-pandemic era.

Without COVID and its crippling tentacles, Benavidez would probably have one, perhaps two, more victories on the left side of his unbeaten resume. He’d be further down his projected career path than he is now. But the boxing shutdown also was an opportunity, a moment to reflect on who he is. Who he wants to be.

Above all, he realized how much he missed the ring. And, above all, it sounds as if he deepened his commitment to a craft as uncompromising as it is brutal.

Amid uncertain times, Benavidez is more certain than ever.

“I feel like it’s a new chapter in my life,’’ Benavidez said during a call with reporters this week from Mohegan Sun Arena.

It is, in large part because Benavidez has more to fight for than ever. He’s about to be a father.

“In three weeks, I’m going to be a dad,’’ he said.

He’ll be a dad with lots of ambition, lots of skill to get what he wants and an evident willingness to fight. It’s that undisguised willingness that makes him so interesting. In terms of skill, he’s an unfinished fighter.

That was evident against Dirrell, who walked him into traps and punches before Benavidez simply wore him down and out. 

But that willingness, complemented by an abundance of energy, are traits of a fighter anxious to learn. Translation. There’s a lot of upside. He can get better. A lot better.

So much so that he believes he can be the world’s undisputed super-middleweight champ.

“There can’t be four champions at super-middleweight,” he said. “We can’t all be unbeaten. All of us need to take a risk. We need to fight each other. There’s Caleb Plant, Billy Joe Saunders, Callum Smith and hopefully, king of the boxing world, Canelo Alvarez.”

In Benavidez’ new life, he envisions fighting all of them. That would be more than one chapter. More like a book. But there won’t even be a forward without a victory over Angulo, who last January upset Anthony Sims in a pre-Super Bowl card in Miami.

“Angulo is very heavy-handed and he wants to win. He’s coming off of an upset win and I think that has him motivated to believe he can beat me,’’ Benavidez said. “…”I’ve just been working on every aspect of my game. My defense, the jab, body shots and keeping the distance especially. I think Angulo is the perfect opponent to display everything I have. This is going to be a rugged and tough fight but that’s what I expect for every fight from now on. As long as I prepare myself correctly, I think I’ll be fine.’’

Preparation is a sure sign of emerging maturity in Benavidez, who will be defending a World Boxing Council belt that he regained after it was taken from him for a positive cocaine test.

Benavidez is predicting a one-sided victory, but not necessarily a knockout.

“I want to win clearly,’’ Benavidez said of Showtime’s main event on a card scheduled to begin at 9 pm. ET/6 p.m. PT. “I don’t want there to be any doubt in anyone’s mind.’’

If he gets the decisive win, he wants to fight again in December or January. Benavidez hopes for an immediate title-unification shot at rival Celeb Plant. First, however, he might have to take care of a mandatory date against Avni Yildirim. Benavidez was supposed to Yildirim in April, but the Turk withdrew with an injury. That led to Angulo, but Yildirim is still ranked as the WBC’s mandatory challenger.

Whatever happens, a date with Plant appears to be more when than if. A long-running trash-talk exchange seems to make it inevitable.

“I want to fight Caleb Plant next.’’ Benavidez said “…I want those other belts. I want to take the chances now and show everybody, including myself, that I’m the best.

“There are lots of great fighters out there, great fights to be made for me. I want to take all of them.’’

By Norm Frauenheim–

The path from COVID to comeback isn’t exactly clear. During an era defined by masks and mixed messages, it can go just about anywhere. Only a new stage, the next step, is certain. Top Rank is preparing to take it.

Call it Phase Two, a succession of nine cards from August 15 through October 13, according to a report in The Ring.

It’s still a life dictated by social distancing, but it’s also one full of hopes for the bigger fights that were there in the initial phase, 13 ESPN-televised cards from June through July at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.

That series of shows often felt like a collection of undercard bouts always in search of a main event. But there were reasons for that. The necessary exercise was all about learning how to stage an event amid the wildly-unpredictable swings of a dangerous virus. It was more about establishing protective procedures and protocol.

There was some drama, but not much. At times, it was a little bit like watching major-league baseball’s Miami Marlins take the field after their roster was gutted by a widespread COVID infection.

Who are those guys?

In Phase 2, the promise and anticipation of major fights will be included, even if fans in seats are not. The biggest might be a lightweight bout with pound-for-pound implications between Vasiliy Lomachenko and Teofimo Lopez. A week ago, there were reports that the fight, scheduled for Oct. 3, was in jeopardy because Lopez wants too much money.

On Thursday, however, The Athletic reported that Lomachenko has agreed to a $3.25-million purse for a pay-per-view appearance. Whether the bout ever gets to an opening bell still depends on the pandemic, which has already forced boxing through a mind-numbing cascade of cancellations and postponements. Nobody is safe. Examples abound, happening almost daily. UConn canceled its football season Wednesday. Eight UCLA football players tested positive Thursday.

There’s no bunker deep enough, no bubble secure enough to hide from it. It could still deliver another disruption to plans for Lomachenko-Lopez. Nevertheless, there’s hope in reports of a looming deal. For a while, at least, half-empty looks half-full. Maybe, this one will in fact happen. 

It’s significant, one that suggests boxing’s comeback from COVID is progressing.

I’m not sure it will ever completely be the same, even with a vaccine that medical professionals say could be available late this year or early next. The most significant fight these days is being waged in labs. But a Lopez-Lomachenko agreement represents a badly needed injection of confidence for a sport beginning to wonder whether there will ever be a third Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder fight.

There are other signs, too. Danny Garcia and Errol Spence Jr. have a reported agreement for a PBC-promoted welterweight fight on Nov. 21 on Fox pay-per-view. It would be Spence’s first fight since he was thrown from his car in a scary crash last October, just a few weeks after he fought his way into the pound-for-pound debate with a victory over Shawn Porter.

On Top Rank’s Phase 2 schedule, the promotional company goes back to a time when the pandemic was still an epidemic. Jose Ramirez-Viktor Postol was scheduled for Feb. 1 in China, where the virus started. It was canceled. Then, rescheduled.

Another cancellation and rescheduling later, here we are, Ramirez-Postol on August 29 in what is seen as a stepping stone for a 140-pound unification bout between Ramirez and Josh Taylor.

It’s too uncertain for a complete comeback. But it’s a beginning, all the way back to the beginning of the kind of fights that sustained the business and still can.

By Norm Frauenheim–

From height to reach, a tale of the tape is a reliable enough scale. But it doesn’t measure maturity. Growing up is a lot different than growing bigger. It’s an intangible, making it hard to quantify, but it’s there in tone and temperament.

You know it when you hear it.

It’s there in David Benavidez, a 23-year-old super-middleweight champion and wise beyond his years. An ongoing pandemic has already altered behavior and is about to change the marketplace, especially for prizefighters who grew accustomed to unprecedented wages during pre-COVID days.

Those days are gone. So, too, is a lot of the money, although it’s becoming clear that not everybody has awoken to the sobering news.

There are increasing reports of fighters at or near the top of the pay scale balking at projected fights because of money. Dollar-for-inflated dollar, Canelo Alvarez stands alone. But there are increasing reports that DAZN is asking him to take a cut in pay.

The streaming service, which signed Canelo to a contract worth $33 million-a-fight, is trying to cut costs. According to a Bloomberg story, DAZN wants out of its soccer deal with UEFA Champions League in Asia.

That report coincides with news that DAZN wants to re-negotiate with Canelo for a fight that has been proposed for Sept. 12. During the COVID era, there are no guarantees. There are no crowds either, which means Canelo will either have to wait for a later date – perhaps November — or a virus-killing vaccine, whichever comes first.

Then, maybe – just maybe – the eight-figure paycheck will be back in the market place. But don’t bet on it.  Only masks and social distancing are guaranteed these days. Benavidez seems to understand that.

“It’s understandable to think that taking a pay cut isn’t fair,” Benavidez said during a conference call introducing a Showtime schedule that begins Saturday with junior-featherweight Andy Leo against late stand-in Tramaine Williams and continues on Aug. 15 with Benavidez in a World Boxing Council title defense against Roamer Angulo in Uncasville, Conn.  “My contract states that my deal stays the same for this fight and the next fight.

“If I have to take a pay cut, I will take a pay cut. That’s up to my promoter and my manager, you know. We can definitely come to an agreement.’’

It looked as if Benavidez was poised to take big step up the pay scale last September after he scored a ninth-round stoppage of Anthony Dirrell and became only the second Arizona fighter to collect a $1-million purse since junior-flyweight legend Michael Carbajal scored the seven-figure feat against Humberto Gonzalez in a 1994 rematch.

But then there was COVID, which altered budgets if not mindsets. Amid reports of stalled negotiations with Canelo, Terence Crawford said he wouldn’t take a pay cut. Ryan Garcia said he wanted big money. Thursday, The Athletic reported Teofoimo Lopez was balking at offers to fight Vasiliy Lomachenko. Lower your masks, gentlemen. It’s only supposed to cover your nose and mouth. Not your eyes. That marketplace is changing. There’s no Floyd Mayweather Jr.-like payday in anybody’s post-COVID future.

Benavidez gets it.

“As for my fights, I give the best fights that I can possibly can give and deserve the pay that I get. But if we have to come to an agreement, we can come to an agreement.”

Dollars are the devils in the details, of course. But it sounds as if Benavidez has an unspoken awareness of what he has to do. To wit:  Keep himself in the mix and in the public eye.  His immediate goal is still a fight with Caleb Plant, who holds the International Boxing Federation’s version of the 168-pound belt.

But his name continues to be dropped as a possibility for Canelo, the reigning middleweight champion who won a secondary 168-pound title over Rocky Fielding and relinquished the 175-pound belt he won in a stoppage of Sergey Kovalev.

Callum Smith appears to be the leading candidate for whenever and where ever Canelo fights next.  If not Smith, maybe David Lemieux. Or maybe Benavidez.

Benavidez knows he is on Canelo’s short list. That awareness was evident this week when he appeared on the WBC’s internet production, Tuesday Coffee.

“I have a title that Canelo wants, the WBC,’’ said Benavidez, who had been scheduled to fight Angulo in Phoenix on April 18 in his first hometown appearance in five years. “If he gives me the fight it will be an honor for me. And if he gives me the opportunity I will be ready. I think I have what it takes to beat him: Youth, strength, speed.  I think I can beat him.”

“It is a fight that I want and, if he gives me the fight, it is going to be a war for people and it is a fight that people want to see. Boxing wins with that fight.” 

For now, however, Canelo-Benavidez has only been talk.

“Never an offer,’’ Benavidez said during the Showtime call.

 Also, never a doubt about a maturing fighter’s foresight to know that one day there’ll be one.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Go ahead, wear a mask, stay away from crowds, stay at home and maintain social distancing. That might be enough to keep the COVID away. But the craziness? There’s no protection from that.

Example:

Mike Tyson versus Roy Jones Jr.

Apparently, it’s going to happen. I say apparently, because it looks as if a lot of things still have to happen after Thursday’s headlines about the planned event subside. Here’s what we do know:

The Dignity Heath Sports Park in Carson, Calif., has been reserved for Sept. 12, according to a story first reported by Yahoo. Tyson, 54, and Jones, 51, will wear 12-ounce gloves. The three-hour show is set to be distributed on pay-per-view on a new entertainment platform called Triller

Andy Foster, executive director of the California State Athletic Commission, told Yahoo that Tyson has put a hold on the date. Foster also said he spoke to Tyson and Jones via Zoom.

But details about financial backing and other significant details weren’t included. It’s being called an eight-round exhibition. As of Thursday, however, it was only an exhibition in how to generate headlines. Nobody better at that than Tyson. 

From pre-pandemic to pandemic, his power to generate publicity remains undiminished.

But buyer beware. I’m not sure this gets past the first drug test. That of course, presumes that there will be testing at all. That issue wasn’t addressed Thursday. But, safe to say, it will be for a bout between two legends already eligible for their AARP cards.

Tyson, of course, has been marketing himself and his ring resurrection for months through videos that display his punching power. Yeah, it’s still scary. It’ll be scary 10 years from now. Punching power is the last thing to go. George Foreman still had it when he regained a heavyweight title in a comeback at age 45 in 1994. Foreman, now 71, could probably still rattle the heavy bag with enough impact to light up message boards.

The surprise in Thursday’s news was that Tyson approached Jones about the exhibition. All of the speculation had been about a Tyson-versus-Evander Holyfield exhibition, a nostalgic look back on their infamous 1997 Bite Fight. Holyfield has posted his own videos, all of which showed that the retired heavyweight champ is in as good shape as any 57-year-old man could expect to be.

Instead, Tyson reached out to Jones, who had an almost mythic hold on the pound-for-pound crown during his middleweight, super-middleweight and light-heavyweight reign. Jones did win a heavyweight belt, scoring a unanimous decision over John Ruiz in 2003. Jones was the much smaller man, but Ruiz was no match for his blend of footwork and hand speech.

That blend is long gone, a fact that proved to be Jones’ undoing late in his career and now a potential danger against Tyson if the power in those videos is indeed real.

“I’m looking to be 100% of Mike Tyson in the ring,’’ Tyson said on ESPN’s First Take after plans for the exhibition were announced Thursday. “ … I’m a neophyte in taking it easy. I don’t know how to do it that way.

“I am one speed — forward. I don’t know, Roy is just going to have to deal with that.”

There’s still power in Tyson’s sales pitch, too.  He says he is launching a Legends Only League for retired athletes in all sports. Maybe, his planned exhibition with Jones is a beginning.

For Jones’ part, however, it was not clear that the exhibition was a done deal.  In a video posted on Twitter with Dr. Beau Hightower before a workout, however, Jones confirmed he had been contacted.  He’s interested.

“I still want to see these hands go,’’ Jones said. “I mean, I don’t know how to say no. So, don’t make me do it.  

“Mike is still a hell of a specimen.

“Still a problem to deal with.’’

A problem he might never face if a litany of other problematic details aren’t dealt with. 

By Norm Frauenheim-

The Olympics were supposed to start a week from now. On July 23, Opening Ceremonies were scheduled for the 2020 Games. Like so much else, the Tokyo Olympics are just another postponement in a year that will only be remembered for a pandemic.

Maybe it doesn’t matter much during a time when diversions have been supplanted by infections and death counts. Masks are a lot more important than medals these days.

Still, it was a chance to see if there’s another Michael Phelps, or another Usain Bolt, or another Claressa Shields, or more of Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky. That’s the beauty of the Olympics. Amid its parade of pageantry and history, there’s always the promise of something new.

From Mark Spitz to Phelps, from Jessie Owens to Bolt, from Muhammad Ali to Joe Frazier and George Foreman, the Games recreate themselves. They remind us we’re getting faster and perhaps better. They’re overdone and way too expensive. But optimism isn’t cheap, which is something that becomes increasingly evident with every postponement forced by multiplying numbers that suffocate hope.

The Olympics will be back in some way, in some form. For now, the 2020 version has been rescheduled for 2021, still in Tokyo next year starting on July 24. In times ruled only by chaos, however, it’s fair to wonder if the Games will in fact go off as planned. Postponement is today’s only certainty.

Even if there are Opening Ceremonies next July, some of the key athletes might have already moved on. There’s no paycheck in waiting, especially when a pandemic is the boss. That’s especially true for boxing, which has pushed itself to the Olympic fringe over the last three-plus decades. Fact is, boxing has almost eliminated itself as an Olympic entity with successive scandals that date back to judging that robbed Roy Jones Jr. of a gold medal at the 1988 Seoul Games.

For every scandal, however, there are also fighters who come out of the Olympics and become the stars that are the pro game’s lifeblood and profit margin.

American Oscar De La Hoya won a gold medal in 1992. Floyd Mayweather Jr. won a bronze medal for the US in 1996.  American Andre Ward won gold at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Gennadiy Golovkin (Kazakhstan) and Amir Khan (UK) won silver medals in Athens. Ukrainian Vasiliy Lomachenko won gold medals in two Olympics – 2008 and 2012. American heavyweight Deontay Wilder won bronze at Beijing in 2008. UK heavyweight Anthony Joshua won gold London in 2012. American Shakur Stevenson, an emerging star, won silver at Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

Without them, the pro game of the last 28 years would have been much poorer.

That creates a problematic future for today’s version of pro boxing. Although Olympic boxing has receded in terms of media attention, history says it is still an important resource. The best Olympic boxers arrive in the pro ranks already known to most of the customers. They have experience with the media, they know how to fight away from home and they know their way around the ring.

To wit: The business still needs them.

But no Olympic boxing in 2020 could strip the promoters and networks of the personalities and performers they will always need. Already, there is uncertainty about one of America’s best prospects, Keyshawn Davis.

Davis, the world’s No 1-ranked amateur lightweight and a silver medalist at the 2019 World Championships, did not report to Colorado Springs this week for training toward the re-scheduled Tokyo Games, according to a report in Boxing Scene. It’s not clear why he didn’t show up in camp Monday.

Davis, of Norfolk, Va., and a Stevenson friend, has sent out mixed messages about his plans. When the Tokyo Games were postponed in late March, he told some media outlets that he still wanted to go for Olympic gold. He would not turn pro until after the Olympics a year from now, he said. But he also said there was “a 70 percent” chance he’d go pro.

Who knows?

That’s about all anybody can say during days dominated by only questions instead of the Olympic motto: Citius – Altius – Fortius. The three Latin words means Higher-Faster-Stronger in most years. But they could mean anything, anything at all in 2020.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Ivy League football has more followers today than it has in years. Nobody is exactly happy to be among that newfound crowd.

But the Ivy League is No. 1 this week for taking a step that might be an early-warning sign of what – or what not – to expect for the rest of the year.

There’ll be no Harvard-Yale game this fall. There’ll be no kickoffs at all. The conference, known more for Nobel Prizes than Heisman Trophies, canceled autumn sports this week because of the pandemic-from-hell. Don’t expect the Southeastern Conference to fall in line anytime soon, if ever.

It’ll be a lot harder to cancel or postpone SEC football than it will to take down another statue of a Confederate soldier. A Saturday afternoon in autumn without the Crimson Tide and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama is harder to imagine than a Southern breakfast without grits. Football is more than a game. It is today’s version of Southern rock-and-roll. Rest in peace Charlie Daniels and Roll Tide.

Then again, I would never have imagined a May without a major Cinco de Mayo fight, a June without the NBA Finals and a July 4^th without baseball. Maybe, the NBA and baseball are about to happen in some way and some abbreviated form. But I’ll believe it when I see it. The Diamondbacks are scheduled to open at San Diego on July 24. The Suns and Wizards are scheduled for a July 31 opener in the so-called bubble in central Florida

But it’s hard to get excited, mostly because of a pandemic that is a game only for mask-less fools. There are plenty of them. At least, there are in Arizona, which might explain why the state is No. 1 in desperation. AZ leads the infection rate, world-wide.  As of Thursday, infections were found in 28 percent of COVID-19 tests. That’s one in every four people. I stood in a line of eight shoppers in the grocery store Thursday. If the stats are right, two were infected. I tightened my mask and stepped outside into 113 degrees.

It’s hot.

It’s scary.

It’s Ground Zero.

I’m not sure any kind sport will provide much refuge from that. At least, not in the here-and-now.

Amid the mind-numbing heat and fear, there was finally some sense from the smart guys in the Ivy League. They decided to quit playing around with the annoying succession of cancellations and postponements.

Let’s hear an opening bell when there’s a vaccine.

It’s hard to guess where boxing is headed amid it all. There may not be another wave of the pandemic this fall. But there already has been one wave of uncertainty after another. Top Rank has been staging regular cards for ESPN in Las Vegas for a month now. I like what they’re doing. They’re keeping the game alive and keeping some young fighters busy.

I also applaud Bob Arum for taking the lead in staging cards limited by social distancing, testing and all the rest, including some of the usual stupidity. To wit: Heavyweight Jarrell Miller, Big Baby All Over Again, tested for a PED in what was his second positive test since he was disqualified for a shot at Anthony Joshua, who went to lose to stand-in Andy Ruiz Jr. more than a year ago. Some things never change. It’s almost comforting. Almost.

But Arum is caught in the same uncertainty that has paralyzed the sports business. He had been working toward a September 19 date for Teofimo Lopez-Vasiliy Lomachenko fight. It is an intriguing bout, loaded with pound-for-pound potential. More significant, it looms as a fight that could be the beginning of business, post-pandemic. It’s hard to know whether that means business-as-usual. But it’s a date that was seen as a way to restore the profit margin.

Now, however, Lopez-Lomachenko has been moved to Oct. 3, according to Boxing Scene. The pandemic forced the move. At the rate it’s spreading, it’ll force some more, leaving Ivy League football with more followers than anybody could have imagined a few months ago.

By Norm Frauenheim-

The third Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder fight was supposed to happen this month.

Early in the pandemic, the July 18 date at Las Vegas MGM Grand was viewed as something of a benchmark, a hopeful sign that business – the world – would be back as we’ve known it. Lived it.

But hope, known to spring eternal in better times, is futile these days. First, Fury-Wilder 3 was postponed to Oct. 3. Now, it has moved, pushed to Dec.19 at Vegas’ new Allegiant Stadium amid promoter Bob Arum’s hopes that a live crowd of about 20,000 will be allowed to sit in seats separated by today’s social-distancing dimensions.

“That is the date that we all want,” Arum told Las Vegas’ Review Journal. “That’s the date that both sides are happy with. Whether we’ll be able to do it in the stadium with limited seating, that’s in the hands of the gods.’’

Four months ago, few would have imagined that December would be a possible target date for the resumption of business as usual.

Then again, COVID-19 sounded like science fiction in those days. Who knew that masks would become a fashion statement?

Nobody, despite the mix of fairy tales and fake news from a White House collection of Baghdad Bobs, who keep saying the virus is going to disappear like a miracle. If only that miracle would make them vanish, too.

There are no miracles. But there is some hope, albeit frayed. And there is a potential vaccine, albeit delayed.

A vaccine might be the only realistic hope. The mounting fear of COVID-19 is summed up in the rising number of infections, especially in Arizona, Florida, Texas and California.

Just a couple of months ago, Arizona was thought to be the place where baseball would make its comeback. MLB talked about an abbreviated season in the desert at the spring-training sites in Phoenix. But that was before the virus hit Arizona like a haboob. It’s spreading faster than summer temperatures are rising.

Arizona, baseball’s epicenter in February, is a very different kind of epicenter now.

What has happened in Arizona, my home state, is just another example of what still figures to happen. No telling when the rate of infections will subside. Then, there’s the possibility of a second wave in November, the month before the projected third leg in the Fury-Wilder trilogy.

There are already widespread doubts about whether there will be a college football season this fall.

The NFL, perhaps, has a better shot at some sort of season, yet even it is talking about fans and even players signing some sort of waiver, an acknowledgement that even pro football fears that the pandemic will continue.

From boxing to baseball, money is a motivation for the attempt to get back in the game. Fighters and players still want to get paid. Networks are begging for live content. But the attempted return is as expensive as it is risky.

The NBA is planning to gather in Orlando where it will go into the so-called bubble, which is where boxing has been for nearly a month with weekly Top Rank shows in Las Vegas.

The players, like the fighters, will test, train, eat, sleep and play, all away from fans.  But life in the bubble isn’t cheap. It’s expensive to maintain and sustain. Yet, it’s an investment in keeping fans interested and around for the days when social distancing is a forgotten dimension.

But it’s beginning to look as if only a vaccine can ease public fears and bring the fans back into the arena for a first bell or an opening tip. I’m still hoping to hear that bell for Fury-Wilder 3. But, mostly, I’m hoping for a lab to produce a vaccine.

A vaccine might be the best investment. Long-term, it’s the only way to bet.

By Norm Frauenheim-

It’s a pandemic. Pandemonium, too.

Chaos is everywhere, a symptom seemingly suffered by many who apparently have not been infected by a virus that appears and re-appears like some mutant ghost.

Don’t believe in ghosts? Well, this one is real. It’s named COVID-19 and it’s got everybody scrambled, left with only a few ideas and yet no clue as to how to make any of them happen.

Sports are about routine. Go to the gym, do the roadwork, take batting practice, swim the laps, lift weights, spar, spar and spar some more. There’s a lot more comfort in the routines than there is in wearing a mask.

But that mask – day after day after day — is about the only thing anybody can be sure of any more. Of course, there are the exceptions, the fools who think a mask is a symbol or a statement. They won’t wear one, which is little bit like a skydiver taking the jump without a parachute.

All of this is a long-winded way of getting around to the point. Sorry for that. But these are days when you fill in the blanks while practicing social distancing. Maybe, that’s why Oscar De La Hoya said he’s still thinking about a comeback. What else has he got to do?

The routines are a framework for what’s possible. They represent realistic limits. Maybe, that’s why I miss them. I never thought I would, which in retrospect makes me think I was as foolish as that skydiver without the chute.

But, increasingly, I miss exactly what I had come to think was mundane, if not boring.  

In late June, I miss checking the major-league baseball standings. In May, I missed the NBA playoffs, the Kentucky Derby and Canelo Alvarez. In April, I missed the Masters. In March, I missed the opening rounds of the NCAA Basketball Tournament.

Mostly, I miss hearing an opening bell from a ringside seat.

All of the familiar moments and sounds are supposed to return. Baseball plans a 60-game season, scheduled to begin in late July. The NBA plans a play-off-like format in the so-called bubble. There’s talk of Vasyl Lomachenko-versus Teofimo Lopez in September. The signs are welcome, but suddenly other signs are disconcerting enough to think that I’ll have only the mask for the next few months.

Arizona, my home state, is suddenly in a race with Texas and Florida to be Ground Zero in the COVID-19 resurgence. It depends on the day and the percentage of infections per tests. I’d rather read the box scores.

It’s nerve-wracking and it raises troublesome questions over just how MLB plans to pull off a 60-game schedule built on teams playing within their region. The Diamondbacks, Rangers and Astros are supposed to play each other regularly, home and away. The Dodgers, Angels, Padres and Giants are in the region, too.

No fans are expected to be there. In cities confronted with rates exploding at a scary rate, however, how will they play in Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Diego and San Francisco without somebody getting infected? One infection is enough to suspect a much bigger problem.

Infections are suddenly happening everywhere. Golf, considered an essential business in Arizona when the pandemic first hit, is dealing with them this week.

Four-time PGA Tour champion Brooks Koeppa withdrew from the Travelers Championship Wednesday because his caddie, Ricky Elliot, tested positive. Koeppa’s brother Chase, also withdrew. He had qualified for a spot in the Travelers field.

Golf prospect Cameron Champ tested positive and withdrew as well. Former U.S. Open champ Graeme McDowell, a former U.S. Open champion, withdrew because his caddie, Ken Comboy, tested positive.

Golf is ominous proof that no game is immune. The golf course, almost pastoral.  is perfect for social distancing. The game is played outdoors, where physicians say it’s harder to transmit than indoors. Golfers often stand close to their caddies, but it looked as if the 6-foot distance could be maintained without sacrificing communication or the way in which clubs are exchanged. Just wipe the clubs down in each and every exchange.

But the infections happened anyway. From clubs to bats, more look to be likely.

No way to mask the pandemonium. No way to trash that mask either. Anybody got a working parachute?

By Norm Frauenheim-

On the traditional calendar, September means change, summer turning into fall. But it means something more these days, at least it does for a sport hoping to break out of a lonely bubble and back into crowded arenas.

There’s really no telling when the ongoing pandemic will subside long enough for the return of fans and the live gates that might restore a zero or two to purses. For now, however, September appears to be a potential window for the return of some of the game’s biggest stars.

At the top of the list, there’s a projected bout between lightweight Teofimo Lopez and Vasyl Lomachenko, who was No. 1 in most pound-for-pound ratings, pre-pandemic. It’s an intriguing fight in any month. Any year. September in Las Vegas is the hope in what would be an appropriate welcome back for boxing at its highest level.

Bob Arum, Lomachenko’s promoter, is also looking to bring back unbeaten welterweight Terence Crawford in September or perhaps October. Arum told ESPN that Manny Pacquiao is a possibility. Like Lopez-Lomachenko, Crawford-Pacquiao is a biggie any time.

“We’re going to have Terence fight in September, or October, period,” said Arum, who also mentioned Kell Brook, Shawn Porter, Keith Thurman and Yordenis Ugas.

Then, there are photos of Canelo Alvarez, in training for a projected fight in mid-September, presumably on the Saturday before or after Mexico’s Independence Day, which falls on Wednesday, Sept. 16. Canelo, the reigning middleweight champion, is the game’s leading pay-per-view attraction. It’s tough to underwrite a fight featuring Canelo without a live audience. Same for Lomachenko, Crawford and Pacquiao.

But uncertainty – more like chaos – still reigns because of COVID-19. The virus is spiking in Texas and Arizona, both key boxing markets. All bets are off, at least in term of anything other than tentative. Still, September is a possibility, albeit temporary. Medical experts are saying it could subside during late summer.

It’s no coincidence that September is considered the best month for baseball to wrap up an abbreviated season. That’s only if and when owners and players can reach an agreement over – what else? – money.

In a terrific story, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the Los Angeles Times that baseball would be wise to confine its season to the summer months.

“I would try to keep it in the core summer months and end it not with the way we play the World Series, until the end of October when it’s cold,” Fauci said in a story published Tuesday.

“I would avoid that.”

There’s concern of a second wave in the fall. The infamous Spanish Flu more than a century ago killed millions worldwide, most of the deaths happening in a second wave that hit in October of 1918.

“Even in warm weather, like in Arizona and California, we’re starting to see resurgences as we open up,” Fauci said. “But I think the chances of there being less of an issue in the end of July and all of August and September are much, much better than if you go into October.”

If and when boxing can return with some sort of fan presence, Arum’s Top Rank will be better prepared than any other promotional venture. Top Rank’s ESPN shows in the so-called bubble are ongoing, including a card featuring lightweight Gabriel Flores Jr. against Josec Ruiz, Thursday in a ballroom at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.

The shows have not been without some hitches. Thursday’s card was supposed to feature junior-welterweight Jose Pedraza vs. Mikkel LesPierre. But the bout was cancelled when LesPierre’s manager tested positive for COVID-19. It forced a shuffle. But expect the unexpected. Top Rank is doing exactly that, in the lead – in the bubble, too – in re-learning how to stage cards in a new and cruel world.

Work in the bubble will prepare Top Rank for the moment when the bigger cards can happen.

“You would want to do it at a time when there isn’t the overlap between influenza and the possibility of a fall second wave,” said Fauci, who could have been talking about any sport.

Fauci also cautioned that there were no guarantees.

But there is September, a possibility instead of futility.  

By Norm Frauenheim-

News of an agreement for two Anthony Joshua-Tyson Fury fights next year was quickly followed by bookies installing Fury as a slight favorite.

Maybe the headlines generated some business at the books. But the real odds are on whether these two fights will ever happen. Agreements are like a glass jaw. They get broken all the time.

Of course, Joshua and Fury agree that they would like to fight a couple of times.  Of course, Fury co-manager Frank Warren reportedly said Fury would be happy at a 50-50 split.

It’s easy to agree on half-a-share of nothing.

In effect, that’s what the Joshua-Fury news was this week. It was a tease, a diversion from all of the uncertainty that has boxing and virtually every other sport seeking to hit the restart button amid the ongoing pandemic.

There’s no way to predict when COVID-19 will vanish. And there’s no way to know what the world will look like after it does. If it’s business-as-usual in the post-pandemic era, then Joshua-Fury will move on to the astonishing money that appeared to be inevitable before anyone had ever heard of coronavirus.

But don’t bet on it.

The unemployment figures are too high and the lines at community food banks are too long to think there will be much pay-per-view money in anybody’s pocket for a while. The best bet is that they’ll be negotiating for a total purse that’s a lot smaller than anybody would have imagined just six months ago.

Besides, there’s a minefield full of things confronting each heavyweight before they could even re-visit their reported agreement in an effort to sign a contract, a real deal.

First, Fury, a 7-4 to 2-1 favorite over Joshua, is mandated to fight Deontay Wilder in a third bout, which has been postponed multiple times. There are reports of the second rematch going to Macao or Australia. Maybe, an option is the Raiders’ new stadium in Las Vegas with fans in seats configured by today’s social-distancing limits.

Then, there’s Joshua, who has a date with Bulgarian Kubrat Pulev. Like everything else, it’s been postponed repeatedly. Then, there’s talk of Joshua in another mandatory title defense against Ukrainian Oleksandr Usyk. No idea of when or where or even if. There are no plans these days. Just quarantines and curfews.

Even if Wilder-Fury 3 happens and Joshua faces Pulev, there is only more of the uncertainty that defines a pandemic thus far known only for deadly chaos. The singular power in Wilder’s right hand could score an upset.

Meanwhile, Pulev has little to lose and is tough, which means he’s dangerous for a Joshua who just hasn’t been the same fighter he was in a dramatic stoppage of Wladimir Klitschko in April 2017.

Joshua was curiously cautious in winning a decision over Andy Ruiz Jr. last December, about six months after Ruiz stunned him, scoring a seventh-round stoppage in New York.

Now, we see Joshua on crutches, his left knee in a brace for an injury he says he suffered while running in the woods.

He looks vulnerable.

Maybe that, too, is an illusion, another wager during a time when all bets are off.