WITH grinding slowness the top welterweights of the world are beginning to fight one another. Last year, when Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao finally signed on the dotted line, that ought to have lit the fuse for the other quality operators in the division to quit waiting for their golden ticket (i.e. a shot at Mayweather) and start fighting. It looks like we’re starting to get, if not the fights we’ve been waiting for, at least ones that make logical sense. Shawn Porter beat Adrien Broner last year and it was announced at the weekend that he will box Keith Thurman (the default WBA champ now Mayweather has retired) on March 12. That is a good fight.
Danny Garcia has been making glacial progress since outboxing Lucas Matthysse. But on Saturday he won a necessary and fairly exciting clash with Robert Guerrero. The latter, once an Andre Berto conqueror and Floyd Mayweather challenger, has descended to a gatekeeper role in the Premier Boxing Champions format but Garcia now has the WBC welterweight world title and must surely take on some of the big names. The winner of Thurman-Porter would be good, Amir Khan is his mandatory, all of them appealing options.
The strange curse of Amir Khan may yet rear its perplexing face. Khan has every appearance of being desperate for a fight, but only boxed Chris Algieri in 2015. He has volubly called out Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, and his team were in talks for both of those possibilities. They never materialised. If you believe what Khan says, what Kell Brook says, what Brook’s promoter, broadcaster, what Showtime in the US say, everyone wants Brook-Khan to happen at Wembley Stadium in the summer. And yet that fight is no closer to fruition. As entertaining as Khan’s social media back-and-forth with Eddie Hearn is, it’s no substitute for a real fight. Amir is too talented and too exciting to spend too much longer on the sidelines. My solution to this dilemma – fight Adrien Broner, regain kudos and take the mega-fight with Brook before it goes off the boil. Or before Brook outflanks him by trying to sign a unification clash with Garcia…
