By Jake Donovan
Where there’s smoke, there is supposed to be fire. The 140 lb. division remains in the headlines lately, there very little in the way of blazing matchups seem to come of all of the recent talk.
Historically, it’s the same as it ever was.
For whatever reason, the boys at 140 just can’t seem to get together to produce THAT fighter, one to where everyone feels compelled to move up (or down) in weight for the sake of chasing the money.
The division has forever remained loaded with talent, but left behind has been a trail of squandered momentum and missed opportunities. More of the same is threatening to happen now. Everyone is talking a good game, but snatching headlines and signing on the dotted line remain two very different matters altogether.
To the credit of two fighters, it’s certainly not for a lack of trying. For as long as Tim Bradley and Devon Alexander have crept within sniffing distance of the title picture, both have constantly called for fights against the very best in the division.
The problem is that nobody is any longer in a hurry to answer the phone when either is calling.
Promoter Gary Shaw, co-promoter for Bradley (along with Thompson Boxing), offered a sensible solution to help decipher who is the best 140 lb. fighter on the planet – a three-fight tournament featuring the four best fighters in the division.
Bradley is widely recognized as the best, partially by default but also thanks to strong showings against Junior Witter, Kendall Holt, Nate Campbell and Lamont Peterson in the span of little more than a year. With that in mind, you’d almost expect said fighter’s promoter to have him sit on his lead until another worthy challenge comes along.
But anyone who knows Shaw is well aware that it’s just not how the man rolls.
Few promoters – if any – can claim to consistently throw their kids into tougher fights, often without stressing over obtaining paper on the guy in the other corner. If his guy wins, he wins. If he loses, Shaw is already working on a Plan B to ensure that his guy continues to fight at the highest level.
Perhaps Bradley needs to lose in order for a feasible Plan B to kick into gear. But as long as his talent continues to exceed his marketability, all of his peers will continue to look elsewhere for a payday, even if it means sacrificing the opportunity to claim the division’s top spot.
All, but one.
In a lot of ways, Alexander is in the exact same boat. The St. Louis native has never shied away from a challenge, including demanding more of his promoter – Don King – at a time when his talent threatened to zoom past his career progression.
Oddly enough, it took for Bradley to dump a belt in order for Alexander to advance from boxing’s best kept secret to simply one of boxing’s best. On the same evening that Bradley dominated Campbell (even if the record books show otherwise), Alexander thrust himself towards the top of the division with a spectacular one-sided drubbing of former titlist Witter.
So began the rivalry.
The two fighters have exchanged words through the media – not particularly harsh, with a fair share of compliments mixed in with their respective demands – in efforts to help entice a showdown that becomes more anticipated with each passing day. Alexander has bluntly called out Bradley and every other noteworthy fighter in and around the 140 lb. division. Bradley has yet to directly respond to the challenge, but was the first to throw his proverbial hat into the ring when talks surfaced of a possible four-man tourney to once and for all crown a king.
Shaw initially planned an in-house matchup for his prized pupil, declaring that Bradley would test the welterweight waters against Luis Carlos Abregu while awaiting bigger and better challenges. That plan was backburnered the moment it was revealed that there existed an opportunity to creep towards 140 lb. supremacy in the form of a showdown with fellow alphabet titlist Marcos Maidana.
It was the perfect opportunity for Bradley to make a statement since Maidana hit a dead end in the other direction towards which he looked – a mandatory title shot against Amir Khan. Golden Boy Promotions – who claims paper on both fighters – went out of its way to delay the showdown, convincing Maidana to not enforce his owed title shot in order to Khan to enjoy a much softer touch for his HBO debut while claiming that they wanted this particular fight to marinate.
That Bradley was willing to accept assignment against an opponent Khan and his handlers clearly wanted no part of would only add to his own reputation as a tough, young fighter willing to do all of his talking in the ring.
No sooner than the fight announced was it already postponed from June to July. Soon thereafter, the fight was scrapped altogether once Maidana’s camp alleged a back injury.
It was later revealed that managerial issues was the real cause behind his pulling out of the fight, but what the future has in store for him tells the true tale of Golden Boy’s plans for the future.
Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer was quick to reject Shaw’s suggestion of a four-man tournament, insisting that Bradley and Alexander should simply fight each other, while their own 140 lb fighters – Khan, Maidana and possibly Juan Manuel Marquez, depending upon which direction he heads following his rematch with Juan Diaz – will most likely keep it in house.
In some ways, Schaefer is right – if nobody else is willing to step up to the challenge, then we should just fast forward to a Bradley-Alexander showdown. Both have separate HBO dates lined up three weeks apart this summer – Bradley-Abregu is back on for July 17 in Rancho Mirage, Calif., while Alexander takes on Andriy Kotelnik in a St. Louis homecoming on August 7.
Assuming both win, the question after that will be whether or not HBO – or any other network – will step up and offer the necessary cash to make the fight a reality. Another question will be whether or not either fighter develops into the type of box-office attraction to justify such a hefty investment.
That’s where the involvement of Khan or Marquez would’ve helped. Both bring greater notoriety, a fact obviously not lost on Golden Boy, who had no interest in allowing their fighters to serve as financial springboards for the less bankable Bradley or Alexander.
The concern now, however, is where everyone goes from here. The list of names suggested as future opponents for Khan – Maidana notably not among them – reeks of screwing the pooch. Khan has captured the eye of HBO, who plans to showcase the Brit over the next few years.
The fact that lightweights are being asked to move up in weight to serve as potential challengers this fall tells you all you need to know about how soon it will be before Golden Boy matches him against anyone with a legitimate chance of upsetting their apple cart.
While it’s hardly above any promoter to want to protect their investment, the problem with such thinking is that it potentially puts the rest of the division on hold. Fighters will willingly price themselves out of the chance to face Bradley or Alexander if it means standing in line and waiting for a potential payday against Khan, Marquez or whomever emerges from whatever in-house tournament Golden Boy has planned for all of the 140 lb. fighters they’ve signed over the past year or so.
So until the price is right for a network to bankroll a fight between willing combatants Bradley and Alexander, expect more of the same from the 140 lb. division – a lot of talk about all of the potential matchups to be made, but little in the way of anything substantive materializing.
Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of Boxingscene.com and an award-winning member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Contact Jake at JakeNDaBox@gmail.com.
