The ball began to roll for September 16, 2017, long before the lights were turned on and the doors flew open at T-Mobile?
There are times when we?re certain that although it may not seem courteous, running late to a movie usually means the difficulty of finding a seat in a dark theater may be the biggest of our worries. After all, the actual feature doesn?t start for nearly thirty minutes due to the incessant nature of movie trailers as well as relentless advertising. By the time the featured attraction begins, our bucket of popcorn is half empty and our straws have already begun to make that annoying, slurping noise. This past Saturday evening at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, boxing fans were treated to a reversal of sorts.
Either a long awaited preview came after the monotonous main event between Canelo Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. or the evening in its entirety was somewhat of a timeshare presentation. It?s not a bait and switch by any means because most of us expected Canelo to win but also for Chavez, Jr. to put up more of a challenge than a mirage. He collected two million dollars for his efforts or perhaps for stunning many by simply making the weight limit of 164.5 pounds. Many still jokingly drops statements such as, ?Two million? I?d let him hit me for two million.?
Well, that?s what Chavez, Jr. did on Saturday night. It can?t spell success for him moving forward. Remember when Joshua Clottey put up the same type of effort against Manny Pacquiao in March of 2010? This was the same fellow who gave then welterweight champion Miguel Cotto a night?s worth of Hell just nine months earlier and lost a very tight decision. Before over 40,000 people at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, Clottey maintained a defensive, nonaggression approach to the contest and he paid dearly for it. Just like Chavez, he lost a landslide type of unanimous decision and for the most part, give or take a few contests, he?s not been heard from since then. Be it nepotism, familiarity or something else all together, Julio deserves to be shunned to the boxing gulag for an indefinite amount of time.
How farfetched did the announcement of the September showdown between Canelo and Gennady ?GGG? Golovkin seem to you, the reader and the fan? Sometimes, we?re treated to a face off of sorts in the ring after a peg is removed from the path to a superfight. There?s times when the anticipation becomes an event and times when sadly, it goes nowhere. In November of 1992, Lennox Lewis openly challenged then newly crowned heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe directly from the commentator?s booth. Bowe had just rightfully yanked the unified top spot from Evander Holyfield, but as we know, the fight between Bowe and Lewis never happened. ?Big Daddy? Bowe famously chose to throw his championship belt into the garbage instead of facing the all-time great from England.
In June of 2004, Oscar De La Hoya and Bernard Hopkins fought in separate bouts on the same card in Las Vegas. Oscar had decided to take a shot at the middleweight crown. Standing in the way of a showdown with Hopkins was the WBO champion from Germany, Felix Sturm. Without whipping a legion of dead horses, we were made to understand the nature of the business when Oscar was awarded a highly questionable decision after Hopkins easily decisioned Robert Allen an hour earlier. That?s just the way this works, so it goes without saying that yes, the ball began to roll for September 16, 2017, long before the lights were turned on and the doors flew open at T-Mobile.
Canelo?s resounding win made the introduction of Golovkin as his next opponent much easier, of course. Unless Chavez, Jr. did the unthinkable and delivered a knockout, Canelo?s assertive cry of ?Golovkin, you are next, my friend? was a done deal. The evening delivered according to script because we heard Alvarez speak more English in those few moments than he ever had in the past, at least publicly. His definitive road to becoming a true crossover star could easily change if he gets better at it. Then again, he?s doing just fine without it.
The post-fight news conference actually turned into the first stop of a press tour to promote the fall clash. Vegas strives to give its visitors everything they could ask for under one roof and Saturday evening was no different. Rest assured, this one will deliver and likely leave a mark or two. The wait wasn?t that long. It?s just that it was all too familiar. Hopefully, those days are gone.
