Comments Thread For: Eleider Alvarez, Top Rank Make Promotional Deal Official

[Boxing Logic]

trying to act like jack avoided bivol in order to fight for the lineal title is wat is wrong with you dudes man..U MF'S LOVE THIS DUMB 4 BELTS STUFF AND DONT CARE NOTHING ABOUT THERE BEING ONE CHAMP AND EVERYONE CHASING ONE CHAMPION

You are right, it is wrong for us to say Jack avoided Bivol by fighting Stevenson. I think the reason we sometimes say that is because we're more generalizing about how Bivol was Jack's mandatory, called out Jack when Jack had the belt, then called out Jack after he himself had the belt, and yet Jack never speaks his name unless he gets called out first. The only time Jack responded was when he had to because Bivol called him out primetime on HBO to Max Kellerman. And the reason Jack gave for not fighting Bivol late 2018 was that he had "something big" coming up for the end of 2018, yet it never happened and now he's not fighting Marcus Browne, someone who looked like **** his last fight, until February. That means Jack will have been out the ring for like 9 months in a row, for the second time in a row.

I mean, if you want to be a relevant name in your division, if you want the division you revolve around you, you can't fight every 9 months, otherwise, if the division revolve around you, but you only fight every 9 months, then you holding up the division! That's like the earth relying on the sun for life to survive on this planet, but the sun only come around every 5 days. That **** won't work! You gonna need a new sun to make that **** work. Well same here. If your #1 light heavyweight only fights every 9 months, then the light heavyweight division needs a new #1. Or, since Gvozdyk is champ, if you're going to say Gvozdyk needs guys like Badou Jack to make his reign meaningful, to create a legacy, then guys like Badou Jack need to be fighting more than every 9 months in order to be able to give guys like Bivol and Gvozdyk timely opportunities to earn that legacy. Otherwise, the soonest both Gvozdyk and Bivol can get Badou Jack on their resumes, win or lose, is 9 months after February 2019, so that means November 2019, and then nine months after that, which means August 2020. Do you really want to wait until August 2020 before Jack fights two titlists at 175? And that's only if Jack fights them back to back, which almost never happens with Haymon fighters! So more realistically we are looking at nine months AFTER August 2020, meaning May 2021, or nine months after that, which would be February 2022. By then, Jack will probably be retired.

So, how is Jack supposed to be the main guy that these light heavyweight titlists need to beat in order to create a good legacy for themselves if he fights so infrequently that most of them will never be able to get a chance to fight him before he retires?

Do you see what I mean My Low Place? So what we mean when we say things about the Bivol-Jack situation is that Jack fought Stevenson in May, so he should have fought Bivol in September, November, or December. Then he still could have fought Marcus Brown first third of 2019. What's the problem?

The fact that Bivol has been wanting that fight for two years, yet it still hasn't happened, is what points to Jack ducking. The fact Bivol keeps calling him out, but Jack don't call back with the same volume and enthusiasm in his voice even though Bivol has the belt, is what points to Jack ducking. The fact that Bivol is one of the best boxers alive, albeit undersized for 175, is what points to Al Haymon possibly preventing this fight. Remember Haymon wouldnt let Quillin fight Korobov, or Santa Cruz fight Rigondeaux, and Bivol is better than Korobov.

[MeanestNiceGuy]

Welp, looks like the Kovalev rematch will be Alvarez's last meaningful fight for a while. As far as I'm concerned, he gained a fan in me with the Bute and Kovalev KOs...so I'm good with him either way.

At 34, I probably would've taken a multi-year deal with ESPN and Arum as well....nothing's promised in this game. Just KO Kovalev one more time and I'll be fine with whatever he does from this point on.

Given what happened to Stevenson a few weeks ago, I can't blame ANY fighter for taking big money fights/deals and setting up a life after boxing.

Now...if they brag brag and brag on about how great they are but still choose to fight lower level opposition, that's where my frustrations kick in. Alvarez is a quiet dude who worked hard and had to sit on the sidelines for a while....happy for his new deal!

[killakali]

trying to act like jack avoided bivol in order to fight for the lineal title is wat is wrong with you dudes man..U MF'S LOVE THIS DUMB 4 BELTS STUFF AND DONT CARE NOTHING ABOUT THERE BEING ONE CHAMP AND EVERYONE CHASING ONE CHAMPION

He avoided Bivol which was the much tougher fight than a way faded, gassed Stevenson which was a bigger money fight.

Jack wanted the easier fight which was for more money. Not knocking him for wanting to go the easier more lucrative route but no matter how you look at it he ducked Bivol. Plus even if he beats Browne he won't be in a hurry for the WBA to order the fight vs Bivol and may dump the belt to avoid that fight again.

[THEFRESHBRAWLER]

You are right, it is wrong for us to say Jack avoided Bivol by fighting Stevenson. I think the reason we sometimes say that is because we're more generalizing about how Bivol was Jack's mandatory, called out Jack when Jack had the belt, then called out Jack after he himself had the belt, and yet Jack never speaks his name unless he gets called out first. The only time Jack responded was when he had to because Bivol called him out primetime on HBO to Max Kellerman. And the reason Jack gave for not fighting Bivol late 2018 was that he had "something big" coming up for the end of 2018, yet it never happened and now he's not fighting Marcus Browne, someone who looked like **** his last fight, until February. That means Jack will have been out the ring for like 9 months in a row, for the second time in a row.

I mean, if you want to be a relevant name in your division, if you want the division you revolve around you, you can't fight every 9 months, otherwise, if the division revolve around you, but you only fight every 9 months, then you holding up the division! That's like the earth relying on the sun for life to survive on this planet, but the sun only come around every 5 days. That **** won't work! You gonna need a new sun to make that **** work. Well same here. If your #1 light heavyweight only fights every 9 months, then the light heavyweight division needs a new #1. Or, since Gvozdyk is champ, if you're going to say Gvozdyk needs guys like Badou Jack to make his reign meaningful, to create a legacy, then guys like Badou Jack need to be fighting more than every 9 months in order to be able to give guys like Bivol and Gvozdyk timely opportunities to earn that legacy. Otherwise, the soonest both Gvozdyk and Bivol can get Badou Jack on their resumes, win or lose, is 9 months after February 2019, so that means November 2019, and then nine months after that, which means August 2020. Do you really want to wait until August 2020 before Jack fights two titlists at 175? And that's only if Jack fights them back to back, which almost never happens with Haymon fighters! So more realistically we are looking at nine months AFTER August 2020, meaning May 2021, or nine months after that, which would be February 2022. By then, Jack will probably be retired.

So, how is Jack supposed to be the main guy that these light heavyweight titlists need to beat in order to create a good legacy for themselves if he fights so infrequently that most of them will never be able to get a chance to fight him before he retires?

Do you see what I mean My Low Place? So what we mean when we say things about the Bivol-Jack situation is that Jack fought Stevenson in May, so he should have fought Bivol in September, November, or December. Then he still could have fought Marcus Brown first third of 2019. What's the problem?

The fact that Bivol has been wanting that fight for two years, yet it still hasn't happened, is what points to Jack ducking. The fact Bivol keeps calling him out, but Jack don't call back with the same volume and enthusiasm in his voice even though Bivol has the belt, is what points to Jack ducking. The fact that Bivol is one of the best boxers alive, albeit undersized for 175, is what points to Al Haymon possibly preventing this fight. Remember Haymon wouldnt let Quillin fight Korobov, or Santa Cruz fight Rigondeaux, and Bivol is better than Korobov.

He did have something big coming up a rematch with Adonis until he lost. Don’t play dumb he never mentioned Bivol because Bivol was a nobody. The contract he signed for Cleverly states that he had to vacate the belt if he lost. The best fighter on his resume is an old semi-retired 37yr old Pascal and he just went 12rounds with him lol nobody is ducking that dude. Jack resume shíts all over Bivol garbage resume and Marcus Browne may be better than anyone Bivol has faced tbh

[Boxing Logic]

Welp, looks like the Kovalev rematch will be Alvarez's last meaningful fight for a while. As far as I'm concerned, he gained a fan in me with the Bute and Kovalev KOs...so I'm good with him either way.

At 34, I probably would've taken a multi-year deal with ESPN and Arum as well....nothing's promised in this game. Just KO Kovalev one more time and I'll be fine with whatever he does from this point on.

Given what happened to Stevenson a few weeks ago, I can't blame ANY fighter for taking big money fights/deals and setting up a life after boxing.

Now...if they brag brag and brag on about how great they are but still choose to fight lower level opposition, that's where my frustrations kick in. Alvarez is a quiet dude who worked hard and had to sit on the sidelines for a while....happy for his new deal!

Alvarez went the entirety of the prime of his career, up until age 34, under Al Haymon and Showtime, and never once fought for the title or fought a top opponent, and even had to jump to HBO where real champions fight to finally get a title shot, but now you are worried about him fighting lower level opposition that he's signed with Arum? If Alvarez wanted to fight low level opposition, he could have stayed right where he was, on Showtime, because Showtime currently has no threats to him at 175, and that's all he's been fighting his entire career over at Showtime. It amazes me how people have it so backwards sometimes. People hate Kovalev even though he gave you every fight you could have dreamed of, or tried to. Agreed to a contract to fight Stevenson and Beterbiev. Agreed to fight Beterbiev as a *****ing tuneup fight before Andre Ward LOL. Agreed to a contract to fight Ward twice, in Ward's own "lion's den" so to speak, and fought him twice. Tried to fight Badou Jack, but Jack fought Stevenson instead. Agreed to fight Marcus Browne, and when Browne fell out, replaced him with someone way better, Eleider Alvarez. Fought Pascal coming off his dominant win over Bute, and you rated the Bute win for Alvarez so....

Yet people hate Kovalev, and talk about HBO fighters being protected. Similar story with GGG. He offered to fight middleweight world titlist Darren Barker FOR FREE, literally. Not one of those bull**** "I'll bet half my purse I beat you" tweets. He literally tried to get the fight for free, and was still rejected. Then when HBO finally lets him on the network late in his twenties, they get the best guy who will fight him in his first fight, then I believe in just his second fight on HBO, he agrees to fight Dmitry Pirog, the man who knocked out Danny Jacobs cold, for probably one-tenth of the money that the likes of Andre Ward were getting paid to fight Edwin Rodriguez on HBO. And yet still fans were talking about protected HBO fighters, they're hyping and protecting Russian boxers "like Golovkin," and all this bull****.

And the same memes keep going around about Bob Arum. Have I forgotten the Gamboa vs Juanma situation? No of course not, but what you guys fail to realize is that the Gamboa-Juanma situation from 15 years ago that Arum is famous for, Al Haymon and PBC seem to be at the center of **** like that every 15 minutes (an exaggeration but hopefully you get my point).

They seem to be involved in **** like that way more often than Arum is the point, so why do you guys always complain more about Arum than Haymon and PBC? As I said, Alvarez never fought anyone good for his entire prime on Showtime, so how can going to ESPN be anything but an improvement? Gvozdyk is already there at 175 on ESPN, Gilberto Ramirez says he's moving up, David Benavidez may sign with Top Rank in the future as well and go to 175, and if Bivol and Beterbiev sign with ESPN too, we could finally see all the fights we've been wanting to see at 175 the last year, all starting in 2019. It could be like the WBSS, but on basic cable "free" TV. It's nothing but a good thing. Then hopefully Al Haymon can trade Mikey Garcia to ESPN for one fight in exchange for Terence Crawford to Showtime, and we can get Loma-Mikey on ESPN and Crawford-Spence on Showtime too. But as far as 175 goes, it has a chance to be one of the only divisions where all four champions fight on the same network, so as a boxing fan, I really hope that happens. Would I be as happy if it was Haymon? No because we already saw him have Stevenson, Beterbiev, AND Alvarez, three of the four most popular fighters in Canada, some of whom were also called out by Pascal, the other one of the four, and yet none of them fought each other. Haymon didnt just prevent the fight at 175 we all wanted to see most on HBO, Kovalev-Stevenson, and bring Stevenson to Showtime, but then he even refused to make any good fights on Showtime either at the top of the 175 division.

So why would I be happy about that? That's my whole point, that you guys should stop wishing for Haymon to control divisions when any division he controls goes to absolute ****. Haymon in control of every division in boxing is basically the same as boxing being dead. The only time anything good happens in boxing is when Haymon has no control over anyone relevant at the top of a division, like cruiserweight and the WBSS. If all the top cruiserweights had been signed to Haymon, I doubt we ever would have seen that. If Al Haymon had advised Usyk, and Usyk told him he wanted to enter the WBSS, Haymon probably would have paid Amir Mansour a million dollars to drain to cruiserweight and fight Usyk, with a 10 mil payday in it for Usyk to get the easy win so long as if he wins, an automatic 5 fight extension kicks in with Haymon, and then Haymon would use Usyk to attract new signees at cruiserweight for the next 3 years, while keeping Usyk protected.

**** like that. But since Haymon didnt have much influence at cruiserweight at the time, the WBSS was able to go forward successfully. Hopefully, all the other top light heavyweights, and as many of the top boxers in every other weight class as humanly possible, stay far away from Al Haymon and PBC, and then maybe we can get some of these good matchups for once.

[My Low Place]

He avoided Bivol which was the much tougher fight than a way faded, gassed Stevenson which was a bigger money fight.

Jack wanted the easier fight which was for more money. Not knocking him for wanting to go the easier more lucrative route but no matter how you look at it he ducked Bivol. Plus even if he beats Browne he won't be in a hurry for the WBA to order the fight vs Bivol and may dump the belt to avoid that fight again.

lol that stevenson hurt jack several times where as bivol couldnt even hurt pascal and chilemba...REST ON THE HYPE! BIVOL ISNT WHERE U THINK HE IS..I LIKE THE GUY BUT FIGHTIN FOR AL INEAL TITLE IS WAY MORE IMPORTANT THAT FIGHTING FOR AN ABC TITLE VS BIVOL...IF U CANNOT AGREE TO THAT THEN U DONT WANT WAT IS BEST FOR BOXING

[MeanestNiceGuy]

Alvarez went the entirety of the prime of his career, up until age 34, under Al Haymon and Showtime, and never once fought for the title or fought a top opponent, and even had to jump to HBO where real champions fight to finally get a title shot, but now you are worried about him fighting lower level opposition that he's signed with Arum? If Alvarez wanted to fight low level opposition, he could have stayed right where he was, on Showtime, because Showtime currently has no threats to him at 175, and that's all he's been fighting his entire career over at Showtime. It amazes me how people have it so backwards sometimes. People hate Kovalev even though he gave you every fight you could have dreamed of, or tried to. Agreed to a contract to fight Stevenson and Beterbiev. Agreed to fight Beterbiev as a *****ing tuneup fight before Andre Ward LOL. Agreed to a contract to fight Ward twice, in Ward's own "lion's den" so to speak, and fought him twice. Tried to fight Badou Jack, but Jack fought Stevenson instead. Agreed to fight Marcus Browne, and when Browne fell out, replaced him with someone way better, Eleider Alvarez. Fought Pascal coming off his dominant win over Bute, and you rated the Bute win for Alvarez so....

Yet people hate Kovalev, and talk about HBO fighters being protected. Similar story with GGG. He offered to fight middleweight world titlist Darren Barker FOR FREE, literally. Not one of those bull**** "I'll bet half my purse I beat you" tweets. He literally tried to get the fight for free, and was still rejected. Then when HBO finally lets him on the network late in his twenties, they get the best guy who will fight him in his first fight, then I believe in just his second fight on HBO, he agrees to fight Dmitry Pirog, the man who knocked out Danny Jacobs cold, for probably one-tenth of the money that the likes of Andre Ward were getting paid to fight Edwin Rodriguez on HBO. And yet still fans were talking about protected HBO fighters, they're hyping and protecting Russian boxers "like Golovkin," and all this bull****.

And the same memes keep going around about Bob Arum. Have I forgotten the Gamboa vs Juanma situation? No of course not, but what you guys fail to realize is that the Gamboa-Juanma situation from 15 years ago that Arum is famous for, Al Haymon and PBC seem to be at the center of **** like that every 15 minutes (an exaggeration but hopefully you get my point).

They seem to be involved in **** like that way more often than Arum is the point, so why do you guys always complain more about Arum than Haymon and PBC? As I said, Alvarez never fought anyone good for his entire prime on Showtime, so how can going to ESPN be anything but an improvement? Gvozdyk is already there at 175 on ESPN, Gilberto Ramirez says he's moving up, David Benavidez may sign with Top Rank in the future as well and go to 175, and if Bivol and Beterbiev sign with ESPN too, we could finally see all the fights we've been wanting to see at 175 the last year, all starting in 2019. It could be like the WBSS, but on basic cable "free" TV. It's nothing but a good thing. Then hopefully Al Haymon can trade Mikey Garcia to ESPN for one fight in exchange for Terence Crawford to Showtime, and we can get Loma-Mikey on ESPN and Crawford-Spence on Showtime too. But as far as 175 goes, it has a chance to be one of the only divisions where all four champions fight on the same network, so as a boxing fan, I really hope that happens. Would I be as happy if it was Haymon? No because we already saw him have Stevenson, Beterbiev, AND Alvarez, three of the four most popular fighters in Canada, some of whom were also called out by Pascal, the other one of the four, and yet none of them fought each other. Haymon didnt just prevent the fight at 175 we all wanted to see most on HBO, Kovalev-Stevenson, and bring Stevenson to Showtime, but then he even refused to make any good fights on Showtime either at the top of the 175 division.

So why would I be happy about that? That's my whole point, that you guys should stop wishing for Haymon to control divisions when any division he controls goes to absolute ****. Haymon in control of every division in boxing is basically the same as boxing being dead. The only time anything good happens in boxing is when Haymon has no control over anyone relevant at the top of a division, like cruiserweight and the WBSS. If all the top cruiserweights had been signed to Haymon, I doubt we ever would have seen that. If Al Haymon had advised Usyk, and Usyk told him he wanted to enter the WBSS, Haymon probably would have paid Amir Mansour a million dollars to drain to cruiserweight and fight Usyk, with a 10 mil payday in it for Usyk to get the easy win so long as if he wins, an automatic 5 fight extension kicks in with Haymon, and then Haymon would use Usyk to attract new signees at cruiserweight for the next 3 years, while keeping Usyk protected.

**** like that. But since Haymon didnt have much influence at cruiserweight at the time, the WBSS was able to go forward successfully. Hopefully, all the other top light heavyweights, and as many of the top boxers in every other weight class as humanly possible, stay far away from Al Haymon and PBC, and then maybe we can get some of these good matchups for once.

I stopped reading at, "and even had to jump to HBO where real champions fight to finally get a title shot."


FOH!


You know g0ddamn fuqqin well HBO puts on showcase fights ALL the time! We've seen "champions" fight nobodies on HBO, so what were you saying again???


You just played yourself and wasted your time with that garbage ass dissertation. Move outta my way, this has nothing to do with you.

[Boxing Logic]

He did have something big coming up a rematch with Adonis until he lost. Don’t play dumb he never mentioned Bivol because Bivol was a nobody. The contract he signed for Cleverly states that he had to vacate the belt if he lost. The best fighter on his resume is an old semi-retired 37yr old Pascal and he just went 12rounds with him lol nobody is ducking that dude. Jack resume shíts all over Bivol garbage resume and Marcus Browne may be better than anyone Bivol has faced tbh

Adonis was fighting in November though in a tough fight, and Adonis usually isnt very active. So Badou's "something big" for end of 2018 was actually just a rematch with Adonis in like July 2019 or something? That's my whole point, Badou could have fought Bivol in December, say on the Stevenson-Gvozdyk card or the Wilder-Fury undercard, then rematched Stevenson on the same timetable as Stevenson in the middle of 2019, had Stevenson won.

Honestly what do you expect from boxing fans? Jack's most impressive performances to me were beating Anthony Dirrell, who is not elite but of the B-level guys Dirrell has fought, Jack stood out to me as better than them, and then a close win over George Groves, who has been knocked out by two B+ fighters now, Froch and Smith, although to be fair to Groves, they were naturally bigger than him especially Smith.

Otherwise, Jack fought a way past prime James Degale, a way past prime Nathan Cleverley, and now you're saying he's basically camping at 175 just wanting to fight the old Adonis Stevenson. And that's fine because especially after what happened to Stevenson, I am trying to be better about being accepting if boxers just want to fight for money. So if Jack just wants big paydays against past prime fighters, and he doesn't care about being considered the best at 175, he just wants paydays preferably against older low risk opponents, that's fine and he should say that. Maybe he already has I don't know, I've only watched some of his interviews but not all. But I do know a lot of his fans talk about him as the best guy at 175, so Im saying at least based on that standard, I would have liked to have seen him actually fight a top PRIME light heavyweight in 2018. Instead, now he took the entire second half of 2018 off, then scheduled a fight with a C-level opponent in February, and then he probably wont fight again until late 2019. So it's only late 2018 right now, Bivol already called him out all of 2017 and 2018 and didnt geta fight, and now you're telling me Jack is already booked up all the way until late 2019 and he still hasn't made any commitment to fight Bivol.

So, I guess people can conclude what they want from that. It's true Bivol aint a cash cow but neither is Jack. The way boxing works is you fight the best guys and that's when you gain exposure, which makes you a bigger star, which makes you sell more tickets, which gets you more money. Even though Jack aint a cash cow, Bivol still wants that fight, so why doesnt Jack want the Bivol fight even though Bivol aint a cash cow? At least Bivol has the title. What does Jack bring to the table?

But, if you are part of Jack's team, and you know the details I don't, and fighting only every 9 months against either past prime or C-level opponents is what is best for his career, or his pocketbook, or his future, then I respect that. Jack has fought some sold guys before, and shown heart and toughness. I have respect for him, and I understand him chasing the first Stevenson fight, but other than that, it's been lots of fighting past prime opponents, and zero fighting top prime opponents. But, if the goal is just money, not legacy, then maybe that is smart. Just be honest about it to the fans. Tell them your goal is always the lowest risk, highest reward opponent, and dont leave out the low risk part when you tell them. Tell posters like Low Place what your real career priority is, money, and that you are not actually trying to compete on the same level as a Bivol, if that is in fact the case, so fans should not expect you to or look for you to do that. Just tell them your goal is to fight once every 9 months or so for a nice payday against either a C-level opponent like Browne or past prime Cleverley, or a more risky but older opponent like Stevenson if the money is big enough.

[killakali]

lol that stevenson hurt jack several times where as bivol couldnt even hurt pascal and chilemba...REST ON THE HYPE! BIVOL ISNT WHERE U THINK HE IS..I LIKE THE GUY BUT FIGHTIN FOR AL INEAL TITLE IS WAY MORE IMPORTANT THAT FIGHTING FOR AN ABC TITLE VS BIVOL...IF U CANNOT AGREE TO THAT THEN U DONT WANT WAT IS BEST FOR BOXING

LOLOLOL That 41 year old Stevenson that just woke up from a coma? Yeah that one. SMH There are some dumb MFs on here. Yes the same Stevenson that had already been KTFO before. Stevenson isn't who you think he was. He was 41 years old and way past it and obviously retired one fight if not two fights too late. Stevenson only had a draw vs Jack cuz Jack didn't do anything first 5 rounds.

[THEFRESHBRAWLER]

LOLOLOL That 41 year old Stevenson that just woke up from a coma? Yeah that one. SMH There are some dumb MFs on here. Yes the same Stevenson that had already been KTFO before. Stevenson isn't who you think he was. He was 41 years old and way past it and obviously retired one fight if not two fights too late. Stevenson only had a draw vs Jack cuz Jack didn't do anything first 5 rounds.

Stevenson better than old semi-retired Pascal and that’s facts and Bivol just went 12 rounds with him lol. His entire resume is garbage tbh. Pascal fight showed me Jack beats him easily