By Norm Frauenheim-
Half-empty, half-full is the best way to sum up a year stumbling toward the midpoint of a 12-month run that began amid lots of expectations.
The empty is for what didn’t happen. By now, we should be talking about the chances of the third step a Gennady Golovkin-Canelo Alvarez trilogy.
The full is for Terence Crawford, brilliant in his first welterweight appearance against Jeff Horn and yet seemingly still underrated.
Crawford was No. 1 in this corner’s pound-for-pound ratings last January 1. He still is, of course, especially after saying he wanted to take over the 147-pound division and then began to do just that with a June 9 debut that looked a lot like a take-off.
Crawford will have challengers. Lots of them. Vasiliy Lomachenko, still No. 1 on a lot of lists, is No. 2 on this one. Lomachenko is recovering from shoulder surgery after a surprisingly tough victory over Jorge Linares in a 135-pound title defense. Lomachenko was clever and tough, but the May 12 bout suggested that a move to 140 pounds might be unwise.
To wit: Mikey Garcia, No. 3 on this pound-for-pound list and awaiting an intriguing date against Robert Easter on July 28, hits a lot harder than Linares There’s already some talk about Garcia against powerful welterweight Errol Spence, No. 4 on this list and maybe Crawford’s greatest threat in a bout next year. More on that later and at a later date.
It’s hard to settle on who should be at No. 5. The guess here is that he will emerge from what didn’t happen during the first six months of 2018.
May came, went and left only more unsettling controversy in the wake of a Cinco De Mayo rematch scuttled by Canelo’s positive PED tests in February.
To use a word that has been overused for the last several months, it’s been tainted. I’m not talking about contaminated Mexican meat, or whether it had anything to do with Canelo’s testing positive for Clenbuterol. Anticipation for the rematch, postponed until Sept. 15, has been tainted by inevitable PED suspicions and mounting tension between the two fighters.
There are reports that GGG and Canelo dislike each so much that they won’t appear together on the same stage, or even perhaps in the same studio or ballroom, for a news conference.
That will sell the fight more than anything else can. Mutual contempt is more marketable these days than a high knockout ratio. There will be lots of dollars for just the chance to see lots of promised, over-the-top violence in this one.
Canelo was slow to enroll in voluntary drug testing. A stubborn GGG was slow to sign a deal until he apparently got the terms he wanted in negotiations that grew contentious once the two returned to the table. The fight was on, the fight was off, the fight was on. The roller coaster ride from now until opening bell on Sept. 15 still has a long way to go.
We’ll get there, hopefully with a decisive result instead of another draw in a bout that will allow GGG and Canelo to move on without ever having to share a room or a ring again. The year will make both of them wealthy, but the bet here is that Crawford will still own 2018.
