With the back-to-back retirement of boxing?s two biggest stars, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, there has been a vacuum when it comes to star power in the sport. There?s just no denying the fact that boxing needs to produce someone who can at least partially pick up the slack for a missing Floyd and Manny.
However, with the sport bogged down in politics and handcuffed by business interests, a true crossover star will be hard to come by. But there?s one place where a star CAN be produced and where the business of boxing may no longer be a factor– and that place is right in the same welterweight division where Mayweather and Pacquiao once ruled.
Long considered one of boxing?s glamour divisions, welterweight is currently jam-packed with talent and, also, in desperate need of some sort of mechanism to sort through that talent.
So, if we?re going to roll the dice on one big move to not only create order in the division, but to also try and manufacture a true star, a high-profile welterweight tournament would be the perfect method.
Take eight of the division?s best, seed them from one to eight, and let?s make an old fashioned championship tournament to crown one true champ. And, hopefully, by the end of the tourney, a true star just may be born.
Personally, my eight would include Kell Brook, Keith Thurman, Timothy Bradley, Shawn Porter, Danny Garcia, Amir Khan, Jessie Vargas, and Andre Berto– probably in that order, too. With the seeding order in place, we?d see Brook vs. Berto, Thurman vs. Vargas, Bradley vs. Khan, and Porter vs. Garcia in the first round. Not too shabby, if you ask me. And, surely, fans wouldn’t mind putting the upcoming Thurman-Porter bout on the back burner if it meant being able to reap the benefit of so many other big division fights.
Given the fact that Al Haymon (who represents Thurman, Porter, Garcia, and Berto) and Bob Arum (who represents Bradley and Vargas) have mended fences and are now reportedly willing to work together, this tournament can happen. Kell Brook, promoted by Eddie Hearn in the UK, has a good relationship with Haymon, so his participation may not be that hard to arrange either.
Seeing as how Haymon and his Premier Boxing Champions project have network TV dates in the bag, it would be awesome to be able to air the entire tournament on NBC over a number of dates until a winner is crowned. Meanwhile, young and upcoming superstars like Errol Spence Jr. can work on the undercards, beefing up their resumes and skill sets in order to take a crack at the eventual winner.
While one true and legitimate champ at 147 WILL be crowned, there?s no guarantee that he will become the next Mayweather or Pacquiao. But it?s worth a shot…and the worst that can happen is that a lot of boxing fans get a lot of entertainment.
