It didn’t occur to me until earlier today that the LHW division is very interesting at the moment. Especially when considering what happened this past weekend. Currently we have four champions: WBC Adonis Stevenson, WBO Eleider Alvarez, WBA Dmitry Bivol, and IBF Artur Beterbiev. None of them are young, except maybe Bivol, and all have their flaws that can be capitalized on. There is a collection of contenders: Badou Jack, Sergey Kovalev, Oleksandr Gvozdyk, Marcus Browne, Damien Hooper, Anthony Yarde, and Callum Johnson. In my opinion there is not much of a skill gap between these guys and I believe all those belts are there to be took on the right night. Who do you guys see rising to the top of this division? At the moment Bivol is the only one talking unification, which make sense with him being the youngest (hungriest). All the older champions seem content with just getting the bread and acclaim that comes with being called champion, yet don’t want to put in the work to be called the best. The real enemy in boxing is these sanctioning bodies, the only real power they hold is the attention we give to the fighters holding their titles. If you can’t look at a certain division and say that so and so is the definite best there, then what’s the f^ck!n point? Anyways enough ranting. Tl;dr: Who will unify Light Heavyweight? Also check this video out. This content is protected
As you hinted it might be that there will be no one LH king but rather several kings. In a sense that if guys like Alvarez, Bivol, Beterbiev, Gvozdyk, Jack fight each other, one time one of them will win but then may lose the rematch and so on. A situation like this will be good for the division and fans, though. I hope we will see a lot of good fights in the near future.
Well I hope Gvozdyk beats Stevenson, then ideally we get a 2019-20 wbss to sort the division out. Right now in terms of accomplishments I'd say with Kovalev losing Stevenson should be considered the top guy in the division, followed by Alvarez. Most likely to reign if they fight each other I'd say Gvozdyk, with Bivol beating the rest and having a chance to beat Gvozdyk. I don't see anything in Yarde to worry Gvozdyk and Bivol. No the "real enemy" in boxing and especially at light heavy isn't the title sanctioning bodies, it's the promoters. Top Rank wants to guide Gvozdyk's career on ESPN, Main Events likes the control of Bivol they have on HBO, Haymon/PBC has kept Stevenson on Showtime, Haymon/PBC also wouldn't want to sacrifice Jack against a lot of the top light heavies, Beterbiev now has a co-deal with Hearn, and showcasing him on DAZN could in effect be a step-aside arrangement for him to avoid GYM's other Haymon guys. Alvarez is in the best position as an apparently independent Haymon fighter. His logical next fight should be Bivol on HBO, but he could well go for Jack or Browne on Showtime.
I don’t blame the promotional companies for doing what is essentially their job. They must navigate this landscape in a way that makes the most financial sense for themselves and their fighters. There is nothing wrong with boxing being shown on different networks, but unfortunately these networks want exclusivity in exchange for fair payment. If there was just one belt, financial gain would be rewarded for skill and in rare instances popularity. In any regards, Gvozdyk and Stevenson are supposedly fighting 11/3 on Showtime. The HBO card this past weekend didn’t do so well numbers wise or gate wise from what I’ve heard. I would imagine HBO will be trying to distance themselves from Duva now that Kovalev has lost the luster of being a “champion,” and as a result “draw”. Badou Jack has a pretty solid track record of taking on challenges and Haymon/Mayweather must be paying well to continue getting the bouts on Showtime. Last I checked Alvarez,Stevenson, and Beterbiev all have the same promoter. I wrote all this to say, nothing is really standing in the way of these guys actually taking meaningful fights against each other, except maybe pride and greed. Stevenson wouldn’t take on Alvarez, because the risk outweighed the reward. I believe that has changed. Bivol seems to me to be the one in a bad situation right now. But Main Events should be anxious to get him a unification at whatever cost to build his profile where he will be the largest draw. Call me an optimist, but I see nothing but opportunity and dollar signs in the future for this division.
That would be a MAJOR mistake. They already lost Top Rank and their stable is huge. Loma, Gvozdyk, Crawford, Ramirez, etc is all fighters HBO lost to ESPN because they didn't want to give dates to Top Rank and didn't want to show Pacquiao vs Horn (is that it ?) We're now left with K2, Golden Boy and Main Event. K2 and Main Event have like... what 6 fighters ?! If you don't care about the promoters doing business with you, then you should get out of the game. Having one boxing card every month and a half in not enough. I can't say it's Peter Nelson's fault because we don't know everything about what goes on at HBO, but ever since he's been in charge of HBO Sports it's been in decline.
If the question is who's the best light heavy sorry to get off-topic, but it's promoters who make the fights so if the best aren't fighting it's promoters that have to get the blame. They decide when taking on the risk of a loss is worth it for them, or if they'd rather milk ticket sales and TV rights with easy wins. They're only too happy to use titles to either avoid opponents or demand control in making fights. Stevenson-Gvozdyk is happening because the title sanctioning body mandated it, so you can't say they're getting in the way of fights more than promoters. If Gvozdyk wins I expect Arum to look to profit from his championship status by keeping him on ESPN, likely avoiding the other top guys for a while. It was the promotional divide that made making Kovalev-Stevenson such a challenge for a couple years, as clear as it was that Stevenson was personally happy to duck Kovalev and benefit from the situation. There's a damn lot of promotional conflicts standing between the best light heavies fighting right now. I don't doubt the top boxers themselves would jump in with the best right away if competing promoters didn't have conflicting interests.
Yep, HBO needs to keep all the top boxers they can, and maintain good relationships with the promoters who don't have deals with other networks. The surely want to bend over backwards to keep Bivol on their air. If they don't keep guys like him they'll just become increasingly irrelevant. Main Events should be happy with the situation too, as a small promoter with a chance to showcase their guy.
It'll be either Gvozdyk or Bivol. Beterbiev is good enough but he's just too inactive. Jack will do well for a couple more years but isn't good enough to be the top dog. Umar Salamov could surprise people and Akhmedov and Buatsi are on the way up.
