As you look at the fall schedule, it's highlighted by two key dates, September 13 and November 22. In about a week at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Saul Alvarez defends his super middleweight championship versus Terence Crawford in a high profile event that will be streamed on Netflix. Then in Saudi Arabia a couple of months later, a stacked card featuring more than one world title fight takes place.
In-between this you have your usual stuff that is put forth by the various promotional entities as they fulfill their exclusive output deals with DAZN.
Oscar Collazo, one of the best boxers in the world makes a title defense on DAZN on September 20. Jaron Ennis in his junior middleweight debut takes on Uisma Lima (also on DAZN) on October 11. A couple of weeks after that you have your latest PBC pay-per-view event on Amazon Prime that features Sebastian Fundora-Keith Thurman. Then on November 8 you have Vergil Ortiz taking on Erickson Lubin.
PBC
I'm sure in the subsequent weeks the boxing ledger will be filled out even more. But to me, this schedule is a bit thin. Yeah, you see some recognizable names but there doesn't really seem to be a regular flow of boxing in the autumn.
Which gets me thinking back to that card on November 22nd in Riyadh. It's a card that has David Benavidez vesus Anthony Yarde for the WBC light heavyweight title. Also, 'Bam' Rodriguez, one of the pound-for-pound best boxers on the planet, engages in another junior bantamweight title unification bout against Fernando Martinez. Brian Norman defends his WBO welterweight belt against Devin Haney. Also, Abdullah Mason faces Sam Noakes for the vacant WBO lightweight belt. Artur Beterbiev faces Deon Nicholson in a tune-up bout to boot.
Now, by any standard that is a loaded lineup. Don King -- who once gave us 'Revenge, the Rematches -- would be proud of that card.
Fight Poster
But I have a question: are we better off if some of those fights were spread out a bit on other cards throughout the rest of the year? Again, I'm grateful that these bouts are happening. But here me out, sometimes there can be too much of a good thing at one time. Sure, I love having three scoops of mint chip, but I don't necessarily want the whole carton at one time.
Again, this is a very good card, but the reality is that being that it's taking place overseas, it will take place in the early morning and afternoon in the States. And now that it's autumn, it will be going against college football, and lets be honest, most of America will be focused on that. But here's the reality, some very good fights will be overshadowed or flat out ignored.
Riyadh Season
Case in point, go back to February 22 when Dmitry Bivol and Beterbiev engaged in their rematch in Saudi Arabia. This was a card that saw Vergil Ortiz out-point Israil Madrimov. Carlos Adames was unlucky to have to settle for a draw versus Hamzah Sheeraz, while Agit Kabayel stopped Zhilei Zhang in six before Bivol evened the score against Beterbiev.
All very solid fights.
But what is largely forgotten is the entertaining slugfest between Callum Smith and Joshua Bautsi, two light heavyweight contenders who battled over 12 rounds. At the end, it was Smith who won a hard earned unanimous decision. In my view it should be one of the leading contenders for 2025 'fight of the year' honors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu_PrHruWFg
Yet, it's largely forgotten because it took place early in the morning (at least here on the West Coast) and many fans, especially the casual ones, probably never bothered to watch it. I have a theory: most boxing fans have an attention span of a few hours but even they get fatigued watching cards that take place more than three or four hours.
That was the beauty of those stacked King cards of the 90's, which started out with a title fight, and then gave you a main event featuring either a Mike Tyson or Julio Cesar Chavez -- all within a relatively tight time frame. Most people don't really want to watch six hours of boxing in one sitting. That was the thing about HBO and Showtime, they had limited slots and they would basically show just two fights in a telecast (although, Showtime did start to air triple and quadruple-headers in the 2010's
Now, this is just a mild critique of Turki Alalshikh, the bottom line is that many of these fights (Oleksandr Usyk-Tyson Fury being one) that have taken place in the past couple of years simply would not have happened without his organization.
But is it too much to ask that they be spread out just a bit more?
