There is a disturbance in the force which is killing the star wars that empower world boxing.
The most critical damage is being inflicted on the marquee heavyweight division.
Nor is the most vital factor Anthony Joshua taking compassionate leave while he grieves for the two friends who died in that ghastly Nigerian car crash he survived by a miracle.
Oleksandr Usyk — the two-time undisputed and current unified world champion who stands head and shoulders above the leading rivals, who are up to a foot taller than him physically — is forgoing the extra mega-millions available to him in Saudi Arabia so as to find rightful recognition of his superlative skills in America.
Usyk is looking for a US promoter to stage a battle of hugely contrasting styles in Las Vegas or Los Angeles against Deontay Wilder — assuming the American doesn’t slip up in his bizarre run-out against Derek Chisora in London on April 4.
Alabama’s Wilder is 40 now and almost six years past losing his world championship to Tyson Fury in the second of their three epic fights. But he retains a reputation in America as the biggest puncher since Mike Tyson.
There is a disturbance in the force which is killing the star wars that empower world boxing – and the most critical damage is being inflicted on the marquee heavyweight division
Oleksandr Usyk is forgoing the extra mega-millions available to him in Saudi Arabia so as to find rightful recognition of his superlative skills in America
Fury, who still harbours faint hopes of a third fight with Usyk to avenge two defeats thus far, is correct when he says: ‘Oleksandr is only doing this because Wilder is still a big legacy name over there.’
Usyk’s long-time manager Alex Krassyuk confirms: ‘Oleksandr wants to conquer America before he retires.’
The leading candidates to arrange the US end of that ambition are Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions and UFC overlord Dana White, as he expands into boxing.
Usyk’s supremacy as the top pound-for-pound fighter on the planet gives him every right to call his own shots. A fight with Wilder would catch attention not only in America but across the world. Fury and Daniel Dubois drew comparatively limited interest outside the UK, only partly because of broadcast time differences.
Their Riyadh paymaster, Turki Alalshikh, has been pressing Usyk to add to his English scalps by fighting either Fabio Wardley or Moses Itauma. Neither would excite the paying public overseas, at least not yet.
Wardley has written a fairytale of the ring by coming from the anonymity of white-collar boxing to pick up the one heavyweight belt which Usyk had to relinquish in order to pursue his American coronation. And if we must put Wardley’s effort into context, he had significant help from the condition in which Joseph Parker turned up for their fight for the vacant WBO title.
Presumably complacent about Wardley’s background, Parker was clearly overweight and it was later revealed he had tested positive for cocaine. The popular Kiwi was back to his old fun-loving ways, which helped shorten his earlier reign as a world champion.
Itauma is following a more traditional route to the top, but an injury forced him to delay this month’s level-raising fight against American slugger Jermaine Franklin in Manchester until March. British boxing is delighted at suddenly finding itself with five world champions. That is to be celebrated, even if the circumstances are less than fully auspicious.
Itauma is following a more traditional route to the top, but an injury forced him to delay this month’s level-raising fight against American slugger Jermaine Franklin until March
Lewis Crocker, at welterweight, and super-featherweight Jazza Dickens have fought the good fights without exuding world class. The same goes for featherweight Nick Ball, who has brawled rather than boxed his way to a belt. Good luck to them and their local following, but they are little known as yet to the wider public.
Nor is Dalton Smith, whose ascent from Sheffield to New York and the pantheon of British fighters who have won world titles abroad came as an unexpected pleasure. Not least when he and his people rejoiced in Times Square as his name lit up those giant screens.
But realising Smith’s fantasy of a big stadium night in Hillsborough would be a severe test of even Eddie Hearn’s promotional hyperbole.
All of which is set out against a shortage of household names across the hard old game. When Wardley can be a world champion, dear old Chisora still ranks sixth by two of the alpha-belt governing bodies and Lawrence Okolie is the leading contender with one of them, what does that say for heavyweight boxing?
Not exactly talking eras such as Louis-Dempsey-Walcott, Ali-Frazier-Foreman, or Tyson-Lewis-Holyfield, are we?
Nor are the rest of the divisions bristling with unmissable fights. Not when our pair of moderates Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jnr can appear in the top 10s in their divisions.
Where are the Haglers, Durans, Hearns, Chavezes, Mayweathers, Pacquiaos or Sugar Rays (Robinson or Leonard) of today? That level of genius is arguably only present in two of Ring Magazine’s top 10 boxers in the world, namely Usyk, who is not getting any younger, and Naoya Inoue, the big puncher whose devotees are mostly in Japan and among connoisseurs.
The rest of this list are either slipping past their prime or failing to fulfil potential: 3 Jesse Rodriguez, 4 Dmitry Bivol, 5 Artur Beterbiev, 6 Junto Nakatani, 7 Shakur Stevenson, 8 David Benavidez, 9 Devin Haney and 10 Oscar Collazo.
Many others are either slipping past their prime or failing to fulfil potential, including the likes of Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol (both pictured above)
Fury, as he makes his perennial comeback, and Joshua, as he comes out of mourning, might yet enliven a summer night out for the lads at Wembley. But they will be even older if they do finally fight for no more in terms of titles than a fantasy UK Veterans Championship.
None of the above will disturb the pay-per-view rankings. Not when Eubank-Benn II registered only 620,000 buyers. Almost a hundred million Netflix subscribers tuned into internet phenomenon Jake Paul’s showbiz cross-over fights with Mike Tyson (66.3 million) and Joshua (33 million). That comparison spells danger for boxing as we know it.
Can American pin-up boy Ryan Garcia shake off his demons and galvanise a wider audience than his teeny-bopper social media groupies? Fingers crossed, because he has the talent to be a pied piper of the prize-ring.
Might Moses continue to detonate his knockouts all the way to the top of the mountain? Let us pray, since he is a devout Christian utterly devoted to the pursuit of sporting glory.
And boxing is awaiting a saviour.