The battle for welterweight supremacy

By Gavin Duthie - 06/21/2016 - Comments

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By Gav Duthie: It’s been a throwaway comment for years now that the welterweight division is the best in boxing. After only one year after the highest grossing fight of all time between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao the division has completely transformed with those two retiring, a new set of champions and a fresh batch of competitors.

With the heavyweight division gaining excitement after arguably two decades of decay and a solid cruiserweight division it is up to the new batch of fighters to restore welterweight glory and crown a new king.

This piece assesses the current situation, the top contenders and their willingness to fight each other as well as provide predictions as to the new dominant force. The auditions start next week with Keith Thurman facing Shawn Porter.

New Champions

It seems bizarre to say that the longest serving welterweight champion at present is Kell ‘The Special One’ Brook (record) with three defences since his victory against Shawn Porter in late 2014 against mandatory challengers Ionut Dan Ion (Jo Jo Dan) and Kevin Bizier and Brit rival Frankie Gavin. Next up is Keith ‘One Time’ Thurman who despite wrestling the vacant title from the durable Robert Guerrero shortly after Brooks win has only defended against former champion Luis Collazo due to injury. Danny Garcia won Mayweather’s previous WBC title again over Guerrero and Jessie Vargas destroyed unbeaten prospect Sadim Ali to become WBO champ.

The contenders

Then come the contenders where there are a batch of both old and new. It is a legitimate claim that until proven otherwise Tim ‘Desert Storm’ Bradley is the number 1 welterweight being that Manny Pacquiao is the only man to have beaten him. Bradley has wins over Junior Witter, Lamont Petersen, Devon Alexander, Ruslan Provodnikov, Juan Manuel Marquez, Jessie Vargas, Brandon Rios and Manny Pacquiao. Another old head is the returning welterweight Amir Khan after his unsuccessful foray into middleweight boxing losing to Canelo Alvarez. Khan is currently observing Ramadan but it is not inconceivable that he and Bradley could meet in the future. The younger crowd include Erickson Lubin, two weight world champion Terrence Crawford who may move up to 147 if he beats Viktor Postol in a unification bout and possibly the most exciting Errol Spence Jnr. Spence should be IBF mandatory challenger soon which could mean a fight with Kell Brook and one can’t rule out Adrien Broner.

The fights

Keith “One Time” Thurman should have enough to overcome Shawn Porter this Saturday. Negotiations are in advanced stages for a unification bout between Kell Brook and Jessie Vargas which I would expect Brook to win. Amir Khan is WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia’s mandatory, but I don’t see why a rematch with them would provide a different result. I have a feeling that both Brook and Bradley will chase fights in the 154lb division (especially if Brook can’t fight Khan) which would give Spence Jnr a bigger chance at a title. In the next couple of years though I expect Crawford to begin to dominate the division.