By Tom Drury: A lot has happened during the last six weeks in boxing, as the last year has been wound up and we enter the new one. I wanted to share my opinion on the main topics currently going on in the sport, from Floyd Mayweather’s next opponent to Juan Manuel Marquez and his magic trick. I am going to share my thoughts on several topics in bullet point style, enjoy it or hate it; here are my thoughts on the current affairs of boxing.
1. Austin Trout – two names have been thrown about for Mayweather’s return to the ring on May 4: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero, while Trout has been totally dismissed. Guerrero has beaten Selcuk Aydin and Andre Berto at welterweight while Canelo has defeated Josesito Lopez and Shane Mosley up at junior-middleweight in his last two fights. Neither fight is terrible nor I would like to see both. However, a fight with Mayweather would be a quantum leap in regards to level of opposition for Alvarez. His resume is very sparse for a guy most rank in the top two at 154lbs. His fame means more than his resume. Trout seemingly is being punished for having the audacity to upstage a potential main event between Alvarez and Miguel Cotto. Golden Boy Promotions will now likely not schedule Trout any more meaningful fights due to the risk of him screwing anything else up. Golden Boy has a good stable of fighters at junior-middleweight, so why not use them? Just have a money in the bank match already between Trout, Carlos Molina, Erislandy Lara and Cornelius Bundrage. Molina tames James Kirkland and Lara destroys Paul Williams then both receive little love from their promoter. I hope the same thing did not just happen to Trout, one of the best young fighters in the sport.
2. Mosley vs. Malignaggi – I am going to bill this fight, good, bad and the ugly.
The good: Malignaggi has no power so he won’t concuss Mosley the way somebody else could.
The bad: there is a chance “Sugar” Shane will look better than expected then brought back as a stepping stone for someone younger, more powerful and looking to impress by being the first man to stop Mosley.
The ugly: This fight.
Nobody is going to gain from this match-up, there is no upside to this fight, why not a younger, fresher opponent for Malignaggi? Either Malignaggi wins and continues his career resurrection or a younger fighter maybe (Josesito Lopez) has a good win under his belt to move his career onwards and upwards.
3. The Ring Magazine – Some people think that Ring magazine has been in decline, the magazine was sold to Golden Boy, which quite frankly puzzled me. I personally feel it’s no longer the “Bible of Boxing.”
4. Marquez doping allegations – before I continue, I personally do not believe Marquez was under the influence of performance enhancing drugs in the fourth Pacquiao fight. I believe Pacquiao was caught by a terrific punch and the better man won. Marquez is the first man to floor Pacquiao (legitimately) since the 1990s. He completely rendered Pacquiao unconscious which was to say the least out of the blue. As fans, we don’t want to believe our heroes are flawed men, people just like us that make mistakes.
For those ignorant people that don’t want to come to grips with doping in boxing, I’m going to refer to a quote from Christopher Nolans, (The Prestige on how magic tricks are performed) the first act is, “The Pledge” the magician shows you something ordinary, a deck of cards, a bird or a man, he shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect to see if it is indeed real, unaltered and normal, but of course it probably isn’t. The second act is called “The Turn” the magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you’re looking for the secret… but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking, you don’t really want to know, you want to be fooled. As I said, I personally believe Marquez was clean and he did pass the Nevada athletic commissions test for performance enhancing drugs after the fight. However, in my opinion I believe some fighters now and of past generations, knowingly or unknowingly are using performance enhancing drugs.
I would like fans thoughts on the current affairs in boxing, performance enhancing drugs (PEDS), current match-ups and potential match-ups for 2013.
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