Golden Boy Promotions continues to slowly refill their pool of top level fighters following their 2015 losses to Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions series by signing Panamanian WBA super featherweight titlist Jezreel Corrales (21-1, 8 KOs). This seems like a mutually beneficial signing that should help bring Corrales stateside for future fights if he and his team wish to go that route.
Ever since Golden Boy lost a significant chunk of the top echelon of their roster to PBC (Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia, Deontay Wilder, Shawn Porter, and many more), they have been slowly rebuilding. De La Hoya still has Canelo, probably boxing’s current single biggest star, and he also has a legit top talent in WBA lightweight titlist Jorge Linares. I believe Corrales represents only the third titlist on Golden Boy’s active roster. Even that fact is giving credit to Canelo at middleweight for being the lineal champion even though he technically doesn’t have a belt.
Corrales won his belt in a shocking upset of longtime titlist Takashi Uchiyama almost exactly a year ago. Corrales, a little known mandatory from Panama with a poor KO ratio, destroyed the long time champion in two rounds in Uchiyama’s native Japan. A rematch on New Year’s Eve allowed Corrales to further legitimize himself with a split decision win. Now at 25, Corrales is potentially one of the brightest young stars in the sport.
Beyond the trio of Canelo, Linares, and now Corrales, Golden Boy has made moves to sign or keep known commodities like David Lemiuex, Lucas Matthyse, and Yuriorkis Gamboa. They have also done a fair job building prospects in Antonio Orozco and Joseph Diaz Jr. Beyond these eight fighters that I have mentioned, however, the cupboard is completely bare. Someone like Jezreel Corrales can only help.
Currently HBO, ESPN, and Estrella TV are Golden Boys’s main three televsion outlets for their fighters in the United States. Corrales is too big for Estrella and would need the right opponent or undercard slot for his HBO debut. Perhaps we will see him in a Golden Boy on ESPN main event next. Conversely, there is also star potential for Corrales in Japan now, but De La Hoya’s Golden Boy has next to no experience promoting in Asia so it is difficult to imagine why Corrales would sign with them if that was his goal.
