By Jake Donovan
The curse of the Fab Four lives on.
Years after the departure of (in order) Erik Morales, Marco Antonio Barrera, Manny Pacquiao and eventually Juan Manuel Marquez, the featherweight division continues to struggle in securing leadership at the top.
Chris John is considered the best by default, with Steven Luevano not far behind. Undefeated youngsters Yuriorkis Gamboa and Juan Manuel Lopez have now entered the fray. If all goes well in a couple of weeks, the two will most likely meet sometime later this year in a fight that should help determine a new king, or at least give the division some much-needed identity.
While featherweight struggled, the 130 lb. division joined welterweight as the most lucrative weight classes in the sport, largely thanks to the quartet of superstars staging seven fights against one another at or just beyond the super featherweight limit. The series began with the rubber match between Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera, and ended with Pacquiao barely edging out Marquez in a 2008 rematch that determined divisional supremacy.
Pacquiao’s newly claimed lineage marked the first time the division boasted a true leader since Floyd Mayweather’s three-year stay at the top early in his career. While Pacquiao spent about three years total at the weight, his tour as lineal super featherweight champion barely lasted three months. The next stop was the lightweight division in June 2008 and he never looked back.
Had he done so, he’d say that the 130 lb. division has all but come to a grinding halt.
There appeared to be signs of life around this time last year. Humberto Soto became the de facto leader after Pacquiao and Marquez moved up. A pair of young studs in Jorge Linares and Robert Guerrero was being groomed for a possible head-on collision somewhere down the road after similar plans never had a chance to get off of the ground at featherweight.
Twelve months later, only Guerrero remains a true player at the weight, which is quite a statement considering that he was still more than a month away from his injury-induced abortion of a contest with Daud Cino Yordan and barely rated in the lower portion of any respectable Top 10 rankings.
Soto is now pondering life as a lightweight, beginning with last month’s stay busy win over Jesus Chavez, and now eyeing a possible showdown with the winner of next month’s title fight between Edwin Valero and Antonio DeMarco.
There’s still plenty of time for 24-year old Linares to climb back towards the top and make his mark as one of the sport’s brightest stars of tomorrow. But first comes the rebuilding stage after boxing’s latest Golden Boy was on the wrong end of an embarrassing first round knockout loss late last year.
It was thought that his conqueror, 25-year old Juan Carlos Salgado would take his place as the division’s next superstar. A good looking, undefeated boxer-puncher from Mexico, Salgado is also in the capable hands of Cameron Dunkin, who prior to last year’s Upset Of The Year claimed him to be the best prospect he ever signed.
Considering Dunkin’s reputation for being better than just about anyone else in the business when it comes to spotting talent, as well as his tendency to shy away from the spotlight, the compliment was about as high praise as you can ask.
That his words proved prophetic last October had people genuinely excited about Salgado perhaps being the one to assume control in a super featherweight division long overdue for leadership and sex appeal. Like Linares, Salgado is young enough to where that statement one day comes true.
It just won’t be one day soon.
Salgado was the latest to get bit by the upset bug, falling prey to another undefeated yet relatively unknown challenger in Takashi Uchiyama, Monday afternoon in Tokyo, Japan. The same city that launched Salgado’s alphabet title reign three months ago was the same setting for its ending, as Uchiyama proved to be too awkward, too crafty, and ultimately too much for Salgado to contend with in his first and only defense.
Plenty of talent still exists in the division, but the real question is when they will get together to offer clarity in a division only two years removed from being a lighter weight money pit. Guerrero re-entered the title picture with a convincing decision win over Malcolm Klassen last August.
The belt won in that fight has made its rounds; no super featherweight has made more than a single successful defense of it since the late Diego “Chico” Corrales’ first title reign a decade ago. Twelve separate reigns have emerged in the past nine years, with Klassen and Cassius Baloyi enjoying two tours each.
Guerrero’s reign has lasted about five months. That’s the good news. The bad news is that he hasn’t fought since winning the belt, as he was forced to spend the rest of the year on the bunch while his former promoter (Goossen Tutor Promotions) and current (Golden Boy Promotions) were forced to go another round in court in determining once and for all who could claim Guerrero as their own.
There’s also undefeated Puerto Rican action star Roman “Rocky” Martinez, approaching his first full year as an alphabet titlist. The 26-year old went to England last year to wrest the crown from Nicky Cook and has since defended once in his native Puerto Rico. A second defense is on tap this March, though against the ordinary Ricky Burns.
Big fights could very well be on the horizon in the future, but none are within reach. While this generation’s Fab Four is far removed from their days spent in the super featherweight division, the void they collectively left nearly two years ago remains an impossible one to fill.
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.
