By Norm Frauenheim-
Canelo Alvarez finished 2020, which ended amid relief and hope that business as usual will be there sometime in a new year. Then, Ryan Garcia started 2021 with a bang as loud as a firecracker and yet still haunted by concern that the new will be a lot like the old.
Canelo’s decision over an overmatched Callum Smith on Dec. 19 promised a resumption of some lost reliability. That was followed by some real momentum in Garcia’s powerful stoppage of Luke Campbell on Jan. 2.
But it gave way to a hiatus, which is a polite word describing the same void that descended on boxing like a curtain last year. There were more postponements, cancellations and quarantines than opening bells. For a haphazard 10 months, there was no way out of the bubble.
Are we there all over again? Hope not. But there’s no boxing for nearly two weeks, or at least until Jan. 20 when ShoBox is scheduled to begin a 20th season with junior-welterweight “Marvelous” Mykquan Williams (15-0-1, 7 KOs) against Colombian Yeis Gabriel (15-0, 10 KOs) in a bout between unbeaten prospects at Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut.
Scheduled is the operative word, of course. Maybe, maybe not. Tomorrow is as tentative now as it was a month ago. The calendar has changed, but not much else.
Big fights are getting shut down for the same reason that everything else is. Only COVID is unbeaten. The killer pandemic rages on. Anybody remember when they had a sit-down meal inside a restaurant? Didn’t think so. I haven’t had one since about the last time I had a seat near ringside. The plate remains mostly empty for now.
No big fights are imminent, mostly because of the surging Pandemic, which has forced a shutdown in the usually busy UK until at least the end of the month.
On Jan. 23, junior-featherweight Angelo Leo is scheduled to defend a 122-pound title against Stephen Fulton, also at the Mohegan Sun, on Showtime.
A week later (Jan. 30), Caleb Plant is scheduled to stay in line for a shot at Canelo in a 168-pound title defense against Caleb Truax on Fox.
On the same day, shopworn ex-light-heavyweight champ Sergey Kovalev is scheduled to re-appear for the first time since getting knocked out by Canelo (Nov. 2, 2019). Kovalev is scheduled to face Bektemir Melikuziev on DAZN in Moscow in a bout that presumably hinges on whether the Sputnik V vaccine really works or is just another piece of fictional garbage from some Russian hackers.
Meanwhile, there will be mostly talk:
· Talk about how Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr. should fight in perhaps the best welterweight bout in many years, but probably never will.
· Talk that Teofimo Lopez is willing to fight anybody in the lightweight division. He just told The Athletic he wants to fight Devin Haney, Gervonta Davis and Garcia. ‘We’ve got to face one another’, he said. Hopefully, he also wants to fight Shakur Stevenson, currently a junior-lightweight champ. Lopez, Haney, Davis and Garcia are already being called Four Kings, a nod to the terrific George Kimball book on Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Roberto Duran and Thomas Hearns. Guess here: The predicted Four Kings will become The Fab Five. Expect Stevenson, perhaps the best of them, to move up the scale to 135.
· More talk from Tyson Fury about how he plans to knock out Anthony Joshua. And more talk from Joshua about how he’ll silence Fury. And more crazy talk from Deontay Wilder.
· More talk from Canelo that, yeah, he’ll fight Gennadiy Golovkin in a decisive third bout. But, first, he plans to fight a mandatory super-middleweight defense against Turk Avni Yildirim and then pursue title unifications against Plant and Billy Joe Saunders. Check back in January, 2022. Canelo will still be talking about a third date with GGG.
A belated Happy 2021, a new year that defies plans and predictions. Just a prayer works. Pray that the vaccines work. Pray we can all meet at ringside and then at a restaurant to celebrate the fights, the fighters and lost friends.
