Which is more disturbing: the above tattoos, all on one man, of the Mayweather clan, via BoxingInsider?…
…Or a wake where a dead boxer propped himself up like so, via the New York Post?:
I'm going to go with the Mayweather clan tattoos.
Choices are being made or neared on a variety of fights in the works, which is what this column is meant to dicuss. Besides the people in the headline, we will review fights involving Carl Froch, Bryant Jennings, Mike Alvarado and many others.
Carl Froch-George Groves II isn't going to happen, because Groves didn't like the purse split where he'd only get 15 percent of the money, although Groves is still filing appeals and such. Nobody comes off that great in all this; Froch didn't really want the fight from what I could discern, Groves has gotten a little fussy about contract terms, and the sanctioning outfit that some alphabet advocates defend for having made the first fight happen have gotten in the way of anything like a fair purse split. (The alphabets giveth and the alphabets taketh away.) That opens the way for Froch to fight Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. this summer in what is also a good scrap, although not as good as Froch-Groves II. It also opens up Groves to face super middleweight champ Andre Ward, in what is about as good a fight as Ward can get outside of Froch or Gennady Golovkin. Chavez might not fight Froch; he might go with Ward or Golovkin. Either way it would be on HBO pay-per-view, which marks the latest unfortunate trend of moving back toward a high number of PPVs in 2014 — because that worked so well a few years back, didn't it?
Reluctantly, Top Rank is giving us a decent undercard for Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley II on HBO PPV in the spring. Decent, not great. Rocky Martinez vs. Raymundo Beltran at junior lightweight is probably the highlight. Both men are coming off losses but Martinez's was a respectable one against Mikey Garcia, and Beltran's was widely considered a poorly judged bout against Ricky Burns. Khabib Allakhverdiev vs. Jessie Vargas at 140 is the next best; Vargas tends to be in fun fights and Allakhverdiev is an up-and-comer. Bryan Vasquez vs. junior lightweight prospect Jose Felix is a bit on the "meh" side.
The team of Yuriorkis Gamboa has said it's 90 percent likely they'll face Mikey Garcia next. Let's get that one going. (Not sure if it would be at 130 or 135 pounds. It would be on HBO.)
Timing seems to be killing the Jhonny Gonzalez vs. Abner Mares featherweight rematch, although if you decided Mares has thought better of it I wouldn't blame you. One guy wants to fight one time, one guy wants to fight another time. Mares is hoping to land on the next Floyd Mayweather Showtime PPV undercard in May.
I always seem to be reading a "Roman Gonzalez-Juan Francisco Estrada rematch is getting closer!" story. Every couple weeks or so. But the two flyweights are probably still several fights away, since one of the alphabets put Gonzalez in the #2 spot for Estrada's title, behind Giovanni Segura, and Estrada could be taking on Brian Viloria again next.
Not loving this March Showtime tripleheader: Junior welterweight champ Danny Garcia against Mauricio Herrera (a quasi-acceptable bout for Garcia after his recent run, but nothing to get excited about); young heavyweight Deontay Wilder against Malik Scott (another reasonable step up for Wilder, and the most interesting fight on the card) and Juan Manuel Lopez-Daniel Ponce De Leon II (reprehensible, really, and Golden Boy needs to stop selling "shot" fighters, which is what JuanMa appeared to be against Mikey Garcia).
So Luis Collazo's reward for beating Victor Ortiz could be Keith Thurman, which sounds like a not-so-fun reward. But it's a trip back to Showtime if Collazo gets it, and Collazo's style could give Thurman some fits. On the other hand, I don't read too much into him stopping Ortiz, as if he's revived — he caught a guy with a shaky chin and who hadn't been in the ring for forever. If Collazo doesn't get Thurman, Shawn Porter could, and that's the better fight of the two.
Erislandy Lara-Ishe Smith (154), anyone? No? Yeah, me neither. But it could happen in the spring. Both of these dudes need to be paired with aggressive fighters to entertain, not against like type.
Bryant Jennings vs. Mike Perez could be up next at heavy. That one is good. Perez wasn't astounding in his last outing and neither was Jennings, but they're on the same level competitively, career-wise.
Middleweight Curtis Stevens would like a slice of Peter Quillin, which sounds about right. But Quillin might be fighting Danny Jacobs next instead, so Stevens will probably have to wait. Stevens vs. the winner works for me.
Carl Frampton-Hugo Cazares in April works for me. It's not all that great, mind you. But even with Frampton's rapid rise at 122, he still could use some seasoning against veterans. Just make the next one a good one, Carl.
We could be getting Mike Alvarado-Antonio DeMarco at 140 in April, which figures to make good action and get the winner back on track, since Alvarado is coming off a loss to Ruslan Provodnikov and DeMarco is trying to establish himself at junior welterweight following losses in his most high-profile lightweight bouts.
Top cruiserweight Yoan Pablo Hernandez will face Pawel Kolodziej in March. It's a big step up for Kolodziej, who has beaten a couple faded names at 200 pounds in his 33 victories. But then, Hernandez was a touch shaky in his return from a long ring layoff in his last fight.
(Round And Round sources: BoxingScene; HustleBoss; The Sweet Science; The New York Post; BoxingInsider)
