HITS and MISSES: Devin Haney’s Promising Future and More

As the temperature continued to cool across most of the United States during the first full weekend in November, the boxing schedule kept heating up. The action was headlined by lightweight phenom Devin Haney taking on former titleholder Yuriorkis Gamboa as well as former heavyweight title challenger Luis Ortiz returning to action against Alexander Flores.

Here are boxing’s biggest HITS and MISSES after competing cards on Saturday night.

HIT: Devin Haney’s Promising Future

Whatever you choose to believe about the validity of Haney’s WBC title in comparison to the “Franchise” belt worn by fellow phenom Teofimo Lopez, Haney, 21, from Las Vegas, looked sharp enough against Gamboa, 38, from Cuba, on Saturday night to warrant sincere praise.

Haney won a wide decision in the main event of a DAZN card at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida. The American appears to be a clever, sharp and crafty boxer capable of accomplishing some massive things in the sport.

In fact, combined with Lopez, Ryan Garcia and Gervonta Davis, the four young stars competing in and around boxing’s 135-pound lightweight division appear to have the requisite talent, skill and panache to produce some magnificent future fights against each other.

Here’s hoping for a round-robin. Haney didn’t stop Gamboa the way Davis did last year or even the way Terence Crawford did back in 2014, but he did win virtually every single round against a crafty veteran.

Haney appears to be legit.

MISS: Massive Mismatches

Massive mismatches are a common problem in boxing, at least as seen from the position that promoters, television networks and streaming platforms should be working together to consistently produce fights worth watching for their consumers.

Still, the latest PBC on Fox card headlined by the return of Ortiz, 41, from Cuba, on Saturday night at Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles was a special kind of ridiculous. It gave potential viewers at home almost no reason to tune in to watch the fights. The main attraction was an over-the-hill heavyweight whose best days are probably behind him, and there were no prospects on the card that seem like future stars.

To make matters worse, all the big favorites were given soft touches for their big TV fights, and Ortiz was somehow handed the easiest fight out of everyone. Ortiz was something like -2100 on the betting market, which means you would have to bet $2100 on him winning the fight just to score a paltry $100 back. He made the bookies look super smart by stopping Flores, 30, in less than a minute, but it would have been smarter for the promoters of the bout to pit him against better competition.

HIT: Heavyweights!

Okay, hear me out. I know I just railed against the PBC on Fox card for being a virtually worthless bevy of heavily favored fighters competing in mismatches against hopeless and hapless opposition.

But something that should also be noted is that heavyweight boxing can cure almost any ailment, so at least viewers who amazingly still turned into the card were treated with the biggest punchers boxing has to offer.

Look, the pandemic has wrecked all sorts of things for just about everyone, so putting any kind of PBC on Fox card together can be seen as an impressive feat from a certain point of view. That isn’t exactly my view on the matter, but a decent argument exists for it.

Regardless, the card was at least stacked to the gills with heavyweights. So, while mismatches are terrible, and there was hardly any fight worth watching on the card on its own merit, at least the action that was provided via PBC on Fox was the type of spills and thrills that only heavyweight boxing can produce.

MISS: Fake Crowd Noise

Fake crowd noise is stupid and unnecessary. That’s the fastest and easiest way to say it, and it really doesn’t need much more explanation than that.

Several sports and leagues have come up with different ideas for how to operate during the pandemic, so I can say with real authority on the matter by now that there’s no good reason to pipe in cheers the way the PBC on Fox crew did.

Not only does it make everything seem super fake, but it does so doubly in boxing because the creators of the fake crowd noises are only going to produce the types of things the promoters want us to hear, not what actually might happen in a fight.

A good example would be in Ortiz’s fight when he dropped and stopped Flores in a way that left some questioning whether they had just witnessed a dive. It probably wasn’t a dive, but anyone who follows boxing knows the people in the arena would have booed like it was anyway.

HIT: Canelo Alvarez’s Big Decision 

Canelo Alvarez officially parted ways with Golden Boy Promotions and DAZN over the weekend. That’s great news for Alvarez, 30, from Mexico, because it will get him back inside a boxing ring way faster than most people predicted he would two months ago when he filed his lawsuit. It’s also great news for boxing because Alvarez is one of the biggest draws in the sport and arguably the top pound-for-pound talent in boxing.

Come to think of it, it’s probably just as good for Golden Boy Promotions and DAZN, too.

Look, Alvarez’s relationship with both entities had clearly deteriorated to the point that it was unsalvagable. Now, Alvarez can move on to doing business with other promoters and distributors while Golden Boy and DAZN can do the same.

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