It has been a pretty slow week for the sport in terms of important news outside of one major fight postponement, so let’s take a look at some of the drama and more gossipy type stuff that I usually ignore. We have the latest on whether or not Freddie Roach is still training Manny Pacquio, my thoughts on Eddie Hearn’s offer to Deontay Wilder, Contender reboot rumors, and more.
- Let’s get to the one important bit of news first. Unified cruiserweight titleholder Oleksandr Usyk (14-0, 11 KOs) has suffered what is being called a “minor elbow injury.” He was supposed to fight fellow unified titleholder Murat Gassiev (26-0, 19 KOs) on May 11th in the finals of the World Boxing Super Series cruiserweight tournament for undisputed unification of the division, but that fight will now be postponed to a later date. There has been talk of also moving the might to Russia thanks to a late big money offer, so we’ll see how that plays out too. This is a major blow to the schedule without question. At least it is still happening though.
- Young premium cable channel EPIX is rebooting the contender as we have reported. Andre Ward, Freddie Roach, and Nazim Richardson are all involved as host and trainers respectively. Now we need the fighters. Badlefthook’s Michael Woods is reporting the following fighters are rumored to be participating: “Vaughn Alexander (12-0, from Missouri; No. 42 on Boxrec), Denis Douglin (20-6, from NJ; No 96 on Boxrec), Devaun Lee (10-3-1, from Queens, NY; No. 123 on Boxrec), Ievgen Khytrov (16-1, from Ukraine; No. 23 on Boxrec), Kenneth McNeil (11-4, from Alabama; No. 2010 on Boxrec), Lamar Russ (17-2, fighting out of NC; No. 125 on Boxrec), Eric Walker (15-1, from Louisiana; No. 67 on Boxrec).” Of those first seven rumored, I am familiar with Douglin, Alexander, and Khytrov. Obviously we’re not getting A, B, or even C listers here, but those three can fight at least. The actual pool of fighters will be much, much bigger initially so hopefully there are other known commodities in there as well.
- Canelo Alvarez had knee surgery to remove a cyst. Initial hospital pictures had some in a panic, but it turns out that it is just a minor procedure that will have him back on his feet normally in a couple weeks. That is about all there is to say about that one.
- Anthony Joshua promoter Eddie Hearn set the internet on fire last week when he offered Deontay Wilder $12.5 million dollars flat, take it or leave it to fight his heavyweight star. Given that there is so much more money in that fight than that, obviously it isn’t an offer meant to be accepted. Joseph Parker got roughly 33% of the money generated by his fight with Joshua and the Wilder fight is much bigger. Conservatively, that is a 25% offer at best for the WBC titleholder. Hearn clearly is only playing lip service here to the fight before moving on to Joshua’s less dangerous and still highly profitable mandatory challengers.
- News also broke that Manny Pacquiao was going to use longtime friend and cornerman Buboy Fernandez as trainer for his upcoming summer fight with Lucas Matthysse, ending a seventeen year relationship with longtime top trainer Freddie Roach. Unfortunately Freddie apparently learned about this decision from media reports instead of from his longtime pupil and publicly hasn’t been happy with that. BUT WAIT! Now Pacquiao is saying that no decision has been officially made yet. This is annoying tabloid drama at its finest, but it would be a big deal if Freddie Roach is not in Manny Pacquiao’s corner against Lucas Matthysse.
