What Chance We Will Get The Two Biggest/Best Fights That Can Be Made Next Year?
We are almost there, nearly ready to put behind us one truly awful year. 2020 will go down in history, but not for very good or very positive reasons.
In terms of boxing, we fans can, we hope, look forward to seeing the two biggest and best fights take place in the year 2021.
It’s clear what the world’s fight fans want from 2021: the all-British heavyweight showdown that is Tyson Fury Vs. Anthony Joshua, and the equally boxing at its best welterweight unification showdown that is Errol Spence Vs. Terence Crawford. B
ut will the powers that be get together and give us both fights? Heck, we’d settle for just one of these two super-fights getting made next year.
Boxing is a strange sport, especially for casuals looking in. These people cannot understand why it’s such a big deal whenever a fight between the best Vs. the best is made.
We hardcore fight fans are, of course, used to be disappointed, and we are used to waiting and waiting for the bonanza fights we so badly want/need to see.
Look at Mayweather-Pacquiao, it took nigh on six years to get that fight done, and when it did come, both guys were past their best.
Up at heavyweight, the it-had-to-happen grudge-match between Lennox Lewis and Riddick Bowe served to jerk fans around for years, and it never happened after all the talking and, after all, the failed negotiating.
It is to be hoped the two big fights that are the subject of this wish-list article do come off. Yes, the sport survived despite no Lewis-Bowe fight, as it would have done with no Mayweather-Pacquiao. And, of course, the sport will keep on rumbling if no Fury-Joshua and/or Spence-Crawford fights come to fruition.
But this is not the way we should be looking at things. We want to see these fights, and what’s more, all four fighters say they want them too.
All four guys will be paid handsomely if they give us what we want (in fact, they’ll be paid handsomely if they don’t give us what we want, and this is part of the problem), so why not?
Surely, these fights WILL get made. Of course, there are problems to be overcome – both Spence and Crawford fight on different platforms and for rival promoters, as do Fury and Joshua. But these are not insurmountable obstacles, are they? We, of course, hope they are not.
If one of these superb match-ups fails to happen in 2021, it will be a pretty depressing year. If neither fight takes place, it will be downright painful.
Yes, there will be other good, maybe even great fights happening next year, and they will keep us entertained, they will keep us coming back for more.
But these two mega-fights are different – they are at the very top of everyone’s wish-list. It’s just two fights between warriors who want to fight. So what’s the problem?
Come on, Bob Arum, Eddie Hearn, Frank Warren, Al Haymon, and the guys at ESPN, SKY Sports, DAZN, BT Sports – get together, leave your egos at the door and make 2021 a great year for boxing.
A year so great, so special it will make us almost forget the largely ghastly 12 months we’ve all had to endure here in 2020.
Here’s hoping.