By Scott Gilfoid: What do you think you get when you have a 2nd tier fighter pulled up to face the best fighter in the super featherweight division bar none? You get a slaughter. That’s exactly what we’re looking at with the May 19th fight between WBO super featherweight champion Adrien Broner (23-0, 19 KO’s) and 2nd tier B level fighter Gary Sykes (20-2, 5 KO’s) at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
I still can’t believe this massacre waiting to happen will be the co-main event on the Amir Khan vs. Lamont Peterson II card. I thought that with a card of that magnitude, they’d at least dug up an actual contender to face the 22-year-old Broner instead of Sykes. I’m being kind here by rating him as a B level fighter, because in the fights I’ve seen of Sykes, he looks more like C level than B level. This fight has 1st round knockout written all over it, and I’m frankly disappointed in the World Boxing Organization by them not stepping in to say no to this mismatch, because champions usually face at least a bottom level top 15 contender. The last time I checked, the 28-year-old Sykes isn’t even ranked #15 by any of the sanctioning bodies. In other words, we’re talking pure 2nd tier and that’s sad, it really is.
Why in the world didn’t they snatch up the guy that spanked Sykes twice recently in Gary Buckland? I’d rather see that guy fight Broner any day of the week, because he’s got power and is interesting to watch. For a second tier fighter, Buckland is kind of fun to watch. I especially liked the way that Buckland knocked Sykes out in one brutal round in November 2010. Sykes then fought Buckland a second time in September last year, and again got beat. So why are we even talking about Sykes fighting for a title? What’s wrong with this picture?
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