One of the post-HBO puzzle pieces is in place.
Though the longtime home of elite boxing in HBO was a badly diminished brand prior to its shut down last weekend, they still had a few major pieces of the television contract picture tied up until their demise. Mostly HBO was home to major players in the light heavyweight division. Fighters like Sergey Kovalev, Eleider Alvarez, Sullivan Barrera, Joe Smith Jr, and Dmitry Bivol were all having their fights called by Jim Lampley still his year.
All these names need new television homes now and are coveted pieces in the Showtime/FOX-DAZN-ESPN arms race lead by Premier Boxing Champions, Matchroom/Golden Boy, and Top Rank respectively. Golden Boy’s entirety inlcuding their Mexican superstar Canelo Alvarez was the biggest piece, actually, and a big win for DAZN when the two of them linked up. Last week (while S8C was briefly out of commission), Golden Boy and DAZN scored a nice win too by formally signing junior middleweight titleholder and rising star Jaime Munguia who had been fighting on HBO as well to a co-promotional deal with Mexican powerhouse Zanfer Promotions. This was a small surprise as Zanfer has been working with Top Rank very closely recently, but maybe not a big one as Golden Boy had a few options on Munguia as per his contract from when he signed on and dethroned Golden Boy’s titleholder in Sadam Ali.
This time it is the coalition between Top Rank and ESPN scoring the big win. The network and promoter had already picked up the highly anticipated rematch of Eleider Alvarez’s (24-0, 12 KOs) upset TKO win over Sergey Kovalev, but that was a one off deal negotiated by Kovalev’s promoter Kathy Duva of Main Events. The promoter and network seem to be hedging that Eleider can strike lightning twice against his aging opponent and have signed him to a long term co-promotional contract with Yvon Michel, Alvarez’s long time Montreal based promoter.
It isn’t much of a gamble though, really. Even if Kovalev wins and Top Rank is unable to get any more of his fights on ESPN, the promotional giant still has tons of dates to fill for ESPN. Alvarez will slide in nicely anywhere they want to put him. Top Rank also promotes Ukrainian light heavyweight titleholder Oleksandr Gvozdyk. This means unification could be on the table if Alvarez retains, though realistically Arum and company would probably want to build that fight up a bit first. Not only that, but Top Rank’s super middleweight titleholder Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez has said he is moving up to light heavyweight as well. There are good fights to be had here.
There are also other free agents to consider, namely Dmitry Bivol or even Sergey Kovalev depending on the outcome of his rematch with Alvarez. If Top Rank could add the super talented young Russian titleholder or the aging slugger to their collection then they’d really have something going on at light heavyweight. As it stands, there are a few good fights to make already anyway. Their roster does remain a little shallow at the weight though, even if this is very much a step in the right direction.
