Yet another summer flushed down the toilet.
That was basically the feeling when it was learned last week that former two-division titlist Robert Guerrero suffered a torn rotator cuff and was forced to withdraw from this weekend?s highly anticipated showdown with Marcos Maidana.
The bout was to serve as the main event for HBO?s latest edition of Boxing After Dark, the type of fight reminiscent of what the series what represented when created 15 years ago. Instead, it became the latest installment of an industry that continues to test our patience as we are once again forced to endure the dog days of summer.
Fans reacted to the news as if we were denied the best fight that could ever be made, and that we?re left with a gaping hole in the boxing schedule.
The truth is that neither account is true. In fact, the latter couldn?t be more of an exaggeration. Even if it was, the sport has always proven to reload and come back stronger in the ensuing months.
Four years ago, boxing fans went through a wicked drought, one that was forced upon them while watching one major fight after another fall through in leading to a nearly two month stretch absent of significant boxing action. Yet when all was said and done, the back end of 2007 turned out to be one of the greatest stretch runs in recent boxing history.
The following year saw the sport forced to fight off of the ropes. Summer boxing action was limited to the amateur ranks as the 2008 Olympics took center stage. The next several months saw one flop after another as the sport?s attempt to create new stars and reinvent old ones proved to be a huge failure, with one box office dud after another falling in line with a crippled economy.
Then came the night when a new crossover star was born. Manny Pacquiao ? his star already on the rise ? made the transition to mainstream superstar after forcing Oscar de la Hoya to quit on his stool after eight shockingly one-sided rounds in a bout that became the modern day version of David slaying Goliath (or so the pre-fight odds suggested).
Nothing can be more deadly than death itself, which plagued the summer of 2009. With significant action lacking in the ring, the hottest months of the year became best known for the headlines that were created with one known boxing entity after another meeting his maker ? including the endeared trio of Alexis Arguello, Vernon Forrest and Arturo Gatti.
However, it was also a summer of positive headlines and placesetting for bigger events to come later in the year. Press tours had begun for Showtime?s announcement of its groundbreaking Super Six super middleweight tournament. The final pieces were put together for Floyd Mayweather?s long anticipated return to the ring, following a 21-month hiatus. Pacquiao was looking to add to the record books in pursuit of alphabet glory.
By year?s end, the dry summer was long forgotten. While the end of 2009 is synonymous with the beginning of the fallout in attempting to get Mayweather and Pacquiao together in the ring, their constantly being mentioned in the same breath proved to be box office gold ? for the first time in a decade, two separate fighters headlined pay-per-view events selling at least one million units in the same year.
The dynamic duo repeated the feat last year, another year that saw a dead boring summer. Despite the summer doldrums, ensuing fallouts early in the fall and still no hope of Pacquiao and Mayweather meeting in the ring for what would go down as the most lucrative fight in boxing history, the sport finished strong with a slew of Fight of the Year candidates in its final six weeks of in-ring action.
