IN an ideal world, Dominic Breazeale would be kicking back this week and offering his thoughts on the weekend’s heavyweight unification fight between world champions Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder.
Instead, because nothing’s ideal in boxing, let alone in its problematic heavyweight division, Breazeale fights Wilder and Joshua fights Andy Ruiz Jnr on June 1. Joshua is talking about Wilder and Wilder is talking about Joshua, but that’s all it is at this moment in time – talk.
“One hundred per cent,” Joshua, the WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight champion, told Sky Sports when asked if he would be watching Wilder’s WBC title fight against Breazeale on Saturday (May 18).
“Styles make fights and I think Wilder will fare well against Breazeale. I think Wilder is too quick. He’s a very, very fast heavyweight. But Breazeale is tough. He took me seven rounds.
“I hope Wilder does it in nine, so I can be like, ‘Hey, I done it earlier.’ You know how it is, comparisons and stuff. But, yeah, it will be interesting to see.
“You look at the small things. I look at the small details – when he’s getting tired, how many right hands he throws in a round. I look at something different, rather than comparisons to the rounds.”
Forget drawing comparisons. An even better way of establishing the number one at heavyweight is for the two leading candidates to do away with the also-rans – fights very few are eager to see – and answer the debate themselves in that time-honoured tradition of getting in the ring and making four (titles) become one.
“I think now the reason why the fight will happen is because people will be interested in earning a pound note off of what’s on the table,” Joshua told CNN.
If money is the sole reason big – important, natural – fights are going to happen in the heavyweight division, it’s a sad, sad time for boxing’s flagship weight class. It suggests, too, that there will be plenty of more opportunities for fighters like Dominic Breazeale, Andy Ruiz Jnr, Jarrell Miller (well…) and Tom Schwarz to fill B-side slots and aid the marination process. Perish the thought.
Following back-to-back defeats against Emanuel Navarrete, former WBO super-bantamweight champion Isaac Dogboe knows he will probably need to make a change or two if he’s to now make waves as a featherweight.
Interestingly, one of those changes could be in the corner, a position usually filled by his father and head coach, Paul.
Paul, a former British army officer, has guided his son from the amateur ranks to a world title as a pro and was also responsible for rescuing Isaac on Saturday (May 11), when throwing in the towel in round 12 of his loss to Navarrete. But that may well have been his last call as coach.
First, before any decision is made, the Dogboes needs a break.
“Oh yes, he will take a long vacation and continue his education and if that hunger comes back then he will come back to fight,” Dogboe Snr told Graphic Sports.
“I think I will have to get him another trainer if he decides to come back and fight because I can’t do this anymore.”
If you love someone, let them go. That’s the old adage. But, in the case of the Dogboes, a parting of the ways in a fighter-trainer sense would represent a sad ending to a fascinating journey.
Then again, it might create a new beginning for the man known as ‘Royal Storm’, in which case it would be for the best.
