Bigger wasted potential fight: Juanma Lopez vs Gamboa or Kovalev vs Stevenson?

Lopez vs Gamboa for sure. There was just a lot more buzz around that fight.

 

Those are the types of fights that can bring the sport of boxing way up.

 

Kovalev against Stevenson for me , for a good while they were the 2 top dogs in the division and if memory serves me right people were pretty evenly split on who would have won - I think this fight could have made LHW one of the hottest divisions in the sport at least for a while

 

Joshua/Wilder was the big miss. Should have happened in 2019. Would have been massive.

 

Juanma (another terrible nickname BTW) vs Gamboa

 

Nother vote for Lopez vs Gamboa

 

Guess DW didn't need 100mill?

 

Kovalev vs Stevenson for me. Juanma vs Gamboa was pretty big too, though i think Gamboa would have starched him.

 

Kov and Stevenson as both guy were violently KOing their opponents and the fight would have been for undisputed supremacy.

 

I watched the HBO doubleheader featuring Stevenson vs. Bellew and Kovalev vs. whoever he fought with my youngest daughter. She watched the whole thing. I told her next time they fought Superman would fight The Krusher.

Every time boxing was on for a year or more after that, she'd ask when Superman was going to fight The Krusher. She still brings it up occasionally, asking if they ever fought.

So, in our house, that would be the one.

Even if you get new people interested in a card, they can't figure out (and you can't really explain) why the "next" fight doesn't happen.

It's why boxing won't ever be one of the top sports again. Team sports have weekly matchups and a big event to wrap it all up at the end of every season. In boxing, there's no regular schedule. No regular fights. Big events get talked about, then just fade away.

 

Indeed. That was my take as well. Never saw the appeal or hype around Juanma. I think he’d have gotten lit up by Gamboa.

Kovalev-Stevenson was a more dangerous fight for both guys, although I think Kovalev would have ultimately outclassed Stevenson, there was always the possibility lurking that Stevenson would land something to upend things.

 

I mean, yeah, that was the thinking at the time too. I just never saw what others saw in Juanma or what he had over Gamboa. Yeah, Juanma was a warrior and had heart, but he was easy to hit and always getting cracked open. Gamboa was chinny, but he had such an advantage in speed and overall skill. I thought it was a mismatch waiting to happen.

Not so much with Kovalev-Stevenson. Stevenson was dangerous with that left, so he always had a chance, bu ultimatey I think prime Kovalev was too well rounded and had his own brutal power on top of it. I think there was a reason Stevenson fought the dearth of real opponents for so long.

 

World Series Boxing had some hype going for it and I was pretty interested. I think it would have been better if they didn't do it by country though, just professional teams. It's too bad they haven't done an event in the last two years.