HBO, Showtime Usher in The Next 140-Pound Era

By Cliff Rold

 

It had been well over a year since he’d had a fight in the division. As long as Danny Garcia held on to his various titles at 140 lbs., there was still a toe in the water. Jr. Welterweight hadn’t quite moved on and no one else had proved his better at the weight.

 

Following a clash with Paulie Malignaggi this past summer, Garcia made clear what was pretty obvious for a while. Danny Garcia is now a Welterweight…

 

…and Jr. Welterweight appears ready to move on.

 

This Saturday, HBO (10:15 PM EST) and Showtime (10 PM EST) will highlight 140 lbs. with a pair of interesting clashes that will fill out the title picture. The WBO and IBF straps are taken. Former Lightweight champion Terrence Crawford (26-0, 18 KO) successfully moved up and snared the vacant WBO crown with a stoppage of Thomas Dulorme in April. Cesar Cuenca (48-0, 2 KO) won the IBF title with a decision over Ik Yang in July.

 

Now the WBC and WBA get their dues payers set. It’s unclear who the best fighter in the division is right now, but one of the top candidates for the nod will likely emerge on HBO. Lucas Matthysse (37-3, 34 KO) looked like he might be the man a couple years ago. Garcia, in his career best performance, clogged “The Machine” on the undercard of Floyd Mayweather-Canelo Alvarez.

 

Matthysse is 3-0 since and hasn’t had an easy time. He had to come off the floor to defeat John Molina in 2014. In April of this year, he got all he could handle in the form of Ruslan Provodnikov, boxing well and holding off a violent late rally. Now he has Ukrainian Viktor Postol (27-0, 11 KO), a much taller man with solid boxing skills and the frustration of a long wait.

 

Postol has been the WBC mandatory since last year. At 31, he has to make his opportunities now. Matthysse, despite plenty of accolades, has yet to win a major title outright. Given the esteem Matthysse holds, a win likely vaults Postol to the lead for recognition as best in class. For Matthysse, a win would confirm his place as next in line after the exit of Garcia.

 

If Matthysse-Postol is about quality matching for the hardcore faithful, Showtime has the chance to go stargazing.

 

Or is it rubber necking?

 

There is certainly a car crash quality at time to the career of Adrien Broner (30-2, 22 KO). He has somehow parlayed a loss to Shawn Porter at Welterweight in June into a crack at the empty WBA throne one division down against one of that bodies most recent titlists. Khabib Allakhverdiev (19-1, 9 KO) hasn’t been in the ring since losing his WBA sub-title (Garcia was their “Super” champion) on a controversial decision to Jessie Vargas in April 2014.

 

Putting aside the political stuff, Broner-Allakhverdiev looks like an interesting fight. While there are few special effects to his game, Allakhverdiev is a steady, fundamentally sound battler with good whiskers and stamina. Broner is a fighter big on charisma and possessing just enough talent to sometimes look like he might live up to the initial hype around him.

 

It’s sort of a Zab Judah redux and Broner has been expertly managed to belts in three weight classes and potentially a fourth through paths that don’t scream high resistance. This might be, to date, the most must-win situation of Broner’s career. Part of the appeal of Broner has been the people who will tune in hoping to see him lose. His first defeat, to Marcos Maidana, produced plenty of vicarious thrills for that crowd.

 

The loss to Porter was less of that. Against Maidana, Broner fought back hard. Against Porter, he seemed to be in less than his best shape and never consistently let his hands go. A final round knockdown of Porter was a reminder that Broner can be dangerous. It was though, like so much of his career, a moment of flash in place of sustained substance.

 

A win this weekend wouldn’t erase the skepticism about Broner’s ceiling in the game but a loss would be the equivalent of the roof falling in. He has the chance to play the star in the division on the Al Haymon side of the Jr. Welterweight bracket. Matthysse-Postol appears the better Jr. Welterweight fight on paper. The human drama element makes Broner-Allakhverdiev just as compelling in its own way.    

 

It wasn’t long ago one could make a case for Jr. Welterweight as just a hair off Welterweight as boxing’s deepest class. The slow trickle of talent north has drained a lot of that. Timothy Bradley, Devon Alexander, Garcia, and Amir Khan is a lot for any division to lose.

 

A title picture featuring the winners this weekend and Crawford is a solid foundation to rebuild in a hurry. Add in still viable veterans like Provodnikov, Mauricio Herrera, and Lamont Peterson and Jr. Welterweight could be pretty hot again by 2016.

 

Javier Fortuna might not be that good but he’s fun TV most of the time…If anyone is looking for a cool show, Sense8 on Netflix is a good pick. It’s full of a lot of the typical Wachowski excesses, but it also feels like a more full vision from them than anything since the first Matrix movie…WWE ratings are indicative of what they’re putting on TV. That’s just too much bad TV right now…Could we see a national title game between Utah and TCU? Probably not but the possibility shows how quick a program can fully legitimize from mid-major power to power, period…Wladimir Klitschko getting hurt in training is rare for him but also perhaps a sign of aging. He’s not a young Heavyweight…Kell Brook-Diego Chaves on Showtime is a good thing.