By Alex Fesl: Boxing is a sport dominated by eras. Currently, we are in the Canelo Alvarez era of boxing. Since 2018, when Canelo defeated Gennadiy Golovkin, Canelo has undoubtedly been boxing’s brightest star, whether fans like it or not.
After that match in 2018, we have seen Canelo go on an impressive run in capturing all of the super middleweight titles and defeating one of the best light heavyweight champions of the past ten years, Sergey Kovalev. Yet, with Canelo’s most recent loss to Dmitry Bivol and less than entertaining third fight with Golovkin in 2022, boxing may have an opening for a new star to emerge.
Before the Canelo era, we were in the Floyd Mayweather era of boxing. The fight that started that era was the pivotal match-up with Oscar De La Hoya in 2007. After that fight with De La Hoya, Mayweather would become a household name and PPV king, respectively. During Mayweather’s run after that pivotal match with Oscar, we would see him take on Ricky Hatton, Shane Mosely, Miguel Cotto, Marcos Maidana, young Canelo Alvarez, as well as legend Manny Pacquiao in 2015. After the fight with Pacquiao, we have seen Mayweather start a new phase of his career, taking on Andre Berto, Conor McGregor, and a slew of unwatchable exhibition fights. With Mayweather no longer in the picture, Canelo ultimately captured the reins as boxing’s brightest star for the time being.
Tank vs. King Ry
Quite interesting, at the press conference yesterday, the promoter for Ryan Garcia, Oscar De La Hoya mentioned frequently that this upcoming fight with Tank and Garcia is this generation’s Mayweather vs. De La Hoya. What he means by this is that this fight will undoubtedly skyrocket the careers of both Tank and Garcia after this fight. At the same time, we may also be seeing the beginning of the Tank era or the King Ry era of boxing.
While this can simply be viewed as Oscar selling this fight to fans, he may actually be more right than anything. Both Garcia and Tank boast a large social media fan base and, likewise, interest from boxing fans. Other notable big fights do not appear to be happening anytime soon, like Spence vs. Crawford, Bivol vs. Beterbiev, and Fury vs. Usyk, so this fight is very pivotal to the state of boxing currently. While hardcore fans may be turned off by the social media aspect of this fight or the TMZ-like atmosphere, we can at least appreciate two promoters coming together and setting up this mega fight. Who knows, maybe we can be witnessing the beginning of boxing’s newest superstar.
