Much of the focus on Floyd Mayweather’s announcement that he will face Marcos Maidana on May 3, 2014 on Showtime Pay Per View has either been on the Argentine’s chances of success against the pound for pound ruler or the complaints of Amir Khan who was in the running to land the lucrative spot against “Money” but ultimately did not get the fight. Maybe more important than those considerations is this: now that Mayweather has chosen his opponent, all the fighters promoted by Golden Boy and/or managed by Al Haymon at 140 to 154 pounds can now plan their next fights.
Indeed, it appears that most of the fighters, a group that includes Khan, WBA Interim Welterweight titlist Keith Thurman, IBF Welterweight titlist Shawn Porter, Paulie Malignaggi, Devon Alexander, Luis Collazo, Andre Berto, Adrien Broner, WBA interim junior middleweight titlist Erislandy Lara, IBF light welterweight titlist Lamont Peterson, and Lucas Matthysse, have been waiting to either get the call to face Mayweather or have another fighter not get the call so they could be available to be their opponent. The only fighter who did not sit around waiting for the Mayweather fallout was light welterweight champion Danny Garcia. The young Philadelphian pulled his name out of the running to face Mayweather early on despite being a favorite to land the fight coming off of a tremendous upset victory over Matthysse on the undercard of Mayweather’s September defeat of Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Instead, Garcia is booked to defend his championship against Mauricio Herrera on March 15, 2014 in Puerto Rico on Showtime.
The fighters themselves are not the only ones who have been sitting on the sidelines waiting to schedule fights. Showtime does not have any fights on the books to air other than Garcia-Herrera and an April 19, 2014 card from Washington, DC featuring a light heavweight title unification tilt between Bernard Hopkins and Beibut Shumenov. Additionally, venues such as the Barclays Center in Brooklyn which have hosted numerous Golden Boy events are waiting to book boxing cards.
Now that Mayweather-Maidana has been announced, the cards are beginning to fall somewhat. While there was some back and forth on twitter about a potential Khan-Broner match up, the rumor mill is churning that Broner, who had exercised his contractual right to a rematch against Maidana but was “talked out of it” by Haymon, will move down to junior welterweight and face one of Haymon’s newest clients, John Molina, on the Mayweather-Maidana undercard. As for Khan, there have been reports (on fightnews.com) that he is considering (or re-considering) signing with Haymon to improve his chances of getting a big fight or (tweeted by Gabriel Montoya of Maxboxing.com) that there have talks of a Khan-Peterson rematch.
While the rumor mill has been silent about the other Golden Boy fighters, the promotional outfit certainly has a wealth of fighters in the 140-154 pound weight divisions and can easily mix and match them to deliver significant Showtime main events and undercards. Perhaps they will match Thurman with Malignaggi in a headliner in Brooklyn. An interesting idea would be to put Broner-Molina together with a Porter-Collazo bout and to have the card in an arena in Cinncinatti, Ohio (Broner’s hometown) or Cleveland, Ohio (Porter’s hometown). Any fight involving a comebacking Matthysse would certainly be welcomed… the “Machine” and Berto would probably make for an action affair. Then again, Berto, who looks incredibly muscular, may be looking to move up to 154 pounds where an attractive match for the Haitian Olympian would be Cuban amateur star Lara.
It can be expected that the rumor mill will heat up next week and fight announcements will follow soon thereafter. If any fighters names are not in the mix, it can be assumed that they may be anticipating being Canelo’s opponent for an anticipated July Showtime Pay Per View. If Canelo gets by Angulo, he may look at the winner of the Carlos Molina-Jermall Charlo to attempt to win another title at 154 pounds. However, that fighter may not be as marketable for a pay per view as some of the other fighters already discussed.
One caveat to all of this is that it appears that Showtime, Golden Boy and Haymon will have a lot of slots to fill with an increasing number of pay per view cards. Last year, the network and promoters only had Mayweather’s May and September pay per views in addition to a full slate of Showtime broadcasts. Now they have two potential Mayweather pay per views, three potential Canelo pay per views and the “regular” Showtime broadcasts. This could lead to less triple and quadruple headers on Showtime. It could also lead to more fights featuring fighters new to premium cable airwaves. In a perfect world, it would lead to the end of the “cold war” with Top Rank and HBO (who have their own glut of pay per views coming up with Manny Pacquiao-Tim Bradley II [April], Sergio Martinez-Miguel Cotto [June], a potential Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. event and the potential rematch of the Pacquiao-Bradley winner with each other or Juan Manuel Marquez) but that is not happening. For now, we just wait for the rest of the fights to be scheduled for spring and early summer.
