Early 2009 Shaping Up To Be Big for Boxing

Filed on December 18th, 2008 in Boxing ⋅ ⋅
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The first half of 2009 may be shaping up to be as good as the last half of 2007. Sure 2008 had some good fights, but it didn’t compare to the blockbusters of 2007.

The future, however, is bright.

Some major fights are already on the horizon, including Manny Pacquiao vs. Ricky Hatton likely in May, and Vitali Klitschko vs. David Haye in June. Those are great fights and are both great fights for the sport.

It also seems that everybody and (in the case of the Marquezes) their brother are ready to fight in the first half of the year.

How’s this sound for a potential lineup of fights:

January

  • Antonio Margarito vs. Shane Mosley
  • Andre Berto vs. Luis Collazo

February

  • Rafael Marquez vs. Celestino Caballero
  • Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Juan Diaz
  • Vic Darchinyan vs. Jorge Arce
  • Alfredo Angulo vs. Ricardo Mayorga

March

  • Tomasz Adamek vs. BJ Flores
  • Chad Dawson vs. Antonio Tarver

Not every one of those fights is set in stone, but they are all either signed or rumored to be close to signing. They’re not all the best fights (Dawson-Tarver II?), but some are fantastic (Diaz-Marquez, Darchinyan-Arce).

What made the end of 2007 so special was that guys made fights happen that we didn’t think would happen — Mayweather-Hatton, Calzaghe-Kessler, Taylor-Pavlik, etc.

Until we see the top fighters in the ring with each other (Pacquiao-Hatton, Klitschko-Haye – good job; Kessler-Hopkins, Calzaghe-Dawson, Wladimir-Valuev, etc. – need to get going), boxing will be stagnant.

There are many combinations of great fights that can be made, but not if fighters are only looking after the interests of their wallets. For the good of the sport, fighters need to make great fights. If they do that, the will get paid eventually.

In addition to the quality fights mentioned above, you can also expect to see Michael Katsidis, Kelly Pavlik, Miguel Cotto, Clinton Woods, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Nate Campbell, and more than likely Mikkel Kessler fighting in America.

For me, that’s a good start to 2009. Hopefully it will end even better than it begins.

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