Turn the page, let it go, don’t look back in anger.
Whatever phrase (or song) helps you move on is the one to cling to now, as 2026 beckons and the unfinished business of 2025 is something to be freed of as a new year, a fresh start and exciting opportunities await us and the sport of boxing.
We’re talking about more than resolutions here. We’re discussing the dreams that can lift the sport to a greater position, to a more steady stream of major fight nights that captivate national and global attention as the sport has done dating back decades.
The key word there is stream, as Paramount+ joins DAZN and Prime Video in streaming fights to the masses later in January with the debut of the Zuffa Boxing league that is still in the process of compiling talent that thus far includes a cast with the biggest name being former 140lbs champion Jose “Rayo” Valenzuela.
Meanwhile, longtime powerful promoter Top Rank still has yet to finalize its own broadcast deal, leaving fighters relegated to its Facebook page or club shows.
That brings us to Dream #1: Sit down, be humble.
To hear the Zuffa powers that be talk, it’s as if they’re boxing’s savior, when, in truth, there’s little reason to believe they’d even be entering boxing without the $10 million in annual backing they’re reportedly receiving from Saudi Arabia’s boxing financier Turki Alalshikh.
Their political power frees them to request adjustments to the federal regulations protecting fighter pay and potential manipulations from ranking and providing title belts to fighters while also enabling the Paramount+ deal with big-brother combat sports company UFC.
But if you’re so down on the sport, why even enter it at all?
Spare us all from the idea that you’re reinventing the wheel and get to work to bring the fans more great fights and compelling storylines you’re capable of providing through shoulder programming.
This doesn’t have to be a brainwashing campaign. You say you can succeed. Now prove it.
Dream #2: Make a deal, any deal.
We’ve heard a new broadcast agreement for Top Rank is imminent from the time its eight-year agreement with ESPN expired with Xander Zayas winning the WBO 154lbs belt in July.
Now that Zayas’ first defense is due January 31 – a unified test against Abass Baraou in Puerto Rico – Top Rank remains without a television partner and as one manager recently told me, “If it hasn’t happened by now, odds are it ain’t happening by then.”
For the sake of the sport and the employees of this proud promotion, someone needs to cave on what their financial expectations are and strike an agreement so the likes of Zayas, undisputed junior-featherweight champion Naoya Inoue, featherweight champion Rafael Espinoza, recent welterweight champion Brian Norman Jnr and other promising products can receive their deserved attention from fans who are losing sight of their work with this limited access.
Dream #3: America’s time.
There’s no question Alalshikh deserves credit for enlivening the heavyweight division with his series of title bouts in Saudi Arabia and the U.K., but as we reported from the WBC Convention in Thailand earlier this month, three-belt champion Oleksandr Usyk wants to defend his titles in 2026 against former champion Deontay Wilder of Alabama in America.
Without staging some of these mega-bouts in the U.S., you’re sabotaging the effort to build the sport. Expand its reach, and as BoxingScene’s Jake Donovan reported Tuesday, the effort without Saudi influence to bring Usyk-Wilder to Los Angeles or Las Vegas is a shrewd move certain to generate a wealth of interest beyond what happens in a sanitized venue seen on an early Saturday afternoon in America.
Hopefully, as we’ve also seen with the placement of Teofimo Lopez’s WBO 140lbs title defense against unbeaten three-division champion Shakur Stevenson at Madison Square Garden on January 31 after the colossal failure of excluding fans and media from a May Times Square show, the lesson has been learned.
Dream #4: Full health.
Speaking of heavyweights who’ve revived the division and the sport, perhaps the most important of them is England’s Olympic champion and former two-time heavyweight titlist Anthony Joshua, who escaped with his life Monday in Nigeria from a vehicle crash that claimed two of his closest friends’ lives.
Joshua, 36, has given the sport an incredible amount; the epic 2017 stoppage of former champion Wladimir Klitschko in front of 90,000 at Wembley Stadium – unlike any boxing event I’ve ever witnessed – in addition to two bouts with Usyk, two reigns as a multiple beltholder, and the crushing triumphs over boxing pretenders Francis Ngannou and Jake Paul.
The prayer is he makes a complete recovery from the injuries (described as minor) that he endured in that crash, and returns to stage an anticipated showdown with countryman and former champion Tyson Fury later in 2026.
Dream #5: Bring the action.
While Shakur Stevenson brought more life to his lightweight title defense against William Zepeda this year in Saudi Arabia, his star power hinges on doing it again versus Teofimo Lopez at The Garden.
The night will be immense and fitting for the Newark,New Jersey,product seeking a fourth division belt against Brooklyn’s two-division champion and similarly vocal Lopez.
If Stevenson reverts to evasiveness rather than showcasing his boxing skill, he risks being defined by that while still in need of an image-building, convincing triumph over a name-brand champion.
Win impressively in a display of boxing acumen with enough toe-to-toe sequences, and the rest of the decade is Shakur’s.
Dream #6: Land of the Rising Sons.
We have a super-fight now that unbeaten undisputed champion Inoue and unbeaten recent bantamweight champion Junto Nakatani have won this past weekend in Saudi Arabia.
While the margins were less decisive than expected, Inoue and Nakatani have set the stage for an event that should fill the Tokyo Dome and grip the attention of another continent for the sport.
Expect that card to be loaded with Japanese fighters and champions – a tribute to the boxing talent that nation has produced in recent years.
While Inoue has now been forced to go the distance in his past two bouts, Nakatani was given all he could handle from Mexico’s Sebastian Hernandez – performances that should provoke both to be at their sharpest for the showdown that could very well move the winner toward a bigger fight against unbeaten three-belt super-flyweight champion Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez.
Dream #7: Big fights lead to bigger fights.
The momentum to stage a Cinco de Mayo showdown between WBC light-heavyweight champion David Benavidez and unified cruiserweight champion Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez and an earlier spring battle between 154lbs unbeatens Vergil Ortiz Jnr and Jaron “Boots” Ennis would make this the most loaded first half of a boxing year in decades.
It also sets the tone for matches pitting the Benavidez-Ramirez winner versus Russia’s former undisputed light-heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol and the Ortiz-Ennis winner against WBC champion Sebastian Fundora or IBF belt-wearer Bakhram Murtazaliev.
Similarly, the late February super-featherweight meeting between champions Emanuel Navarrete and Eduardo “Sugar” Nunez should lead that winner toward another unification versus O’Shaquie Foster.
Dream #8: A retiree’s replacement.
The unexpected departure of five-division champion Terence Crawford leaves a void ripe to be filled by his 168lbs stablemate Lester Martinez, whose popularity is palpable following what I viewed as his fight-of-the-year draw versus Christian Mbilli on the Crawford-Canelo Alvarez Netflix card in September.
Martinez is pegged for his own main event in March and he’s in line for a title shot if Mbilli and Hamzah Sheeraz fight for the vacant WBC belt this year.
The all-action slugger from Guatemala, Martinez 19-0-1 (16KOS) has quickly captured the hard-core fight fans’ imaginations and the 30-year-old’s movement through the year should be something to behold.
Dream #9: Gone for good?
What has become of Gervonta Davis since his March 1 draw to Lamont Roach Jnr? Why hasn’t Manny Pacquiao seized upon his spirited July return in fighting WBC welterweight champion Mario Barrios to a draw days after entering the International Boxing Hall of Fame?
Where will these mysteries lead and why are they happening?
With Davis, you must wonder if his heart is in it after the way he performed in escaping versus the inspired Roach and the way he dodged a rematch.
With Pacquiao, the matter is money. A Barrios rematch wouldn’t provide enough pay-per-view capital, and it appears the same can be said with WBA champion Rolly Romero, leading to the possibility of an aged rematch against Floyd Mayweather Jnr, whose financial position was questioned in a Business Insider story that posted this week.
Obviously, there’s intrigue in seeing both fight again.
It might be best to put them in there against each other.
Dream #10: As the calendar turns, we thank each of you for your support through 2025 and all the years before.
Here’s hoping 2026 is your best year, and as you follow the fights, follow BoxingScene – your uncompromised source for boxing news.
