Could the lightweight division emerge as boxing’s next golden era?
Over the past few decades or so, there’s been many occasions where certain boxing divisions had emerged with several quality fighters, who all had the potential to make an appearance on boxings pound for pound list, giving fans exciting thoughts of a possible “golden era”.
That age old saying has often been made prematurely by fans, maybe more in hope of matching, or even getting anything near to the golden era of era’s with the classic middleweights of Hagler, Leonard, Hearns and Duran, but sadly none has ever been close to that level.
Just to clarify, to be a bonafide golden era, you have to have a few elements. Naturally, there needs to be several exceptionally talented boxers, who has to be or have the potential of being in the pound for pound list. They will then all need to be fighting each other, not just one or two of them. Lastly, they will have to have some classic or exciting fights with a few rematches thrown in there.
Recently, the heavyweight division were the latest to have the potential of a golden era, with the likes of Wilder, Fury, Joshua, with hopefully one of Whyte, Povetkin, Parker, Ruiz Jr and now Usyk moving up emerging. However, although the potential is still there, it still remains to be seen if they can fulfil that label.
Lopez emerges
Aside from the heavyweights, in recent years, the lightweight division has started to emerge and seem to be eking out both quality fighters and some mouthwatering prospective fights for the future. With the quartet of Lomachenko, Teofimo Lopez, Gervonta Davis & Devin Haney, the lightweight division really does look exciting and when it comes to potential, the possibilities are endless.
If starts are to go by, the somewhat shock points victory by Lopez over Lomachenko was a superb one.
More so because many (especially ESPN) had labelled Lomachenko as their no1 pound for pound fighter for sometime, even though Lomachanko, already had one defeat from his 15 fights. For me, it didn’t matter that since August 2019 when he outpointed England’s Luke Campbell he picked up a third belt in that weight.
Especially when you look at the likes of Canelo & Crawford who Lomachenko is consistently ranked above by the ESPN cronies, who even at times, tried to erase Lomachenko’s one defeat off the record books.
That said, Lopez was supremely confident leading up to the fight and proved why he was so confident by boxing excellently to race out to big points margin. Lomachenko then closed the gap in the middle rounds, but Lopez showed his quality to close the show with a superb last round to become the unified IBF, WBA and WBO lightweight champion.
Dangerous Davis
What is interesting is, where Lopez is the WBA (Super) champion the WBA (regular) lightweight champion is Gervonta Davis. He is also the current WBA super featherweight champion, but moved up to win the WBA (regular) lightweight title against Yuriorkis Gamboa in December 2019, which he made look difficult as he stoped the Cuban in the 12th.
Due to this, in his next fight against Mexican Leo Santa Cruz, he knew he had to make a statement. Santa Cruz, who also had a share of the WBA super featherweight title (don’t ask) was moving up to challenge for the lightweight title. The Mexican is a tough, durable, volume puncher, who is no slouch being a four weight title holder and lost only one of his 39 fights.
Part of what plays into a golden era is how these boxers perform in other fights against quality opponents to stoke the fires for the bigger fights. Against Santa Cruz, Davis walked forward at every opportunity and because of this, Santa Cruz really gave him a run for his money, catching him with shots.
But if a statement was needed, we certainly got it in the sixth round, Santa Cruz was actually doing the better, but Davis’ power told as he unleashed a vicious uppercut, that put Santa Cruz out, forcing the ref to stop the fight immediately for a statement KO.
Hopeful Haney
The last fighter of the quartet is young rising star Devin Haney, who has been making real waves in the last few years and picked up the WBC lightweight title in 2019, winning the interim belt in September then outright in November. However, with a record of 24-0 some may say he still needs legitimate names on that list to really be taken seriously.
This will start with his impending fight this weekend against Yuriorkis Gamboa where he will hope to dispatch the Cuban in a more emphatic fashion Davis did.
However, a regular in the Mayweather gym with endorsements from Floyd, Haney has been asking for big fights for a while and now has a world recognised belt to entice fighters in, much like how Teofimo who after defeating Lomachenko to unify titles, is the majority share holder of belts in the lightweight division.
Timing is a must
Timing is everything, this also makes for a golden era, Lomachenko is 32 and could be on the slide. Lopez is 23. Davis is 25 and Haney is 21. At least the last three are all at good ages to make fights against each other for a number of years to come.
As Lomachenko is not getting any younger, but only has 16 pro fights on his record, I’m sure he is only looking for big fights from now on. Of course he is looking a rematch but if he cant get that right away, he will have no choice but to take a big fights to put himself back in the picture for a rematch.
Lopez has been talking up fights with Davis and Haney, Davis had previously talked up fights with Lomachenko and Haney has been talking up fights with Davis.
You have to love where this is all going. The only stumbling block will be promotors coming together. Lomachanko and Lopez are both with Bob Arum which is the reason why their fight got made. Haney is with Matchroom & Eddie Hearn and of course Davis is with Mayweather.
Promotors coming together and making fights has historically been a major block in fighters making the fights the public wants to see. Mayweather camp has always had issues with Bob Arum, however, Eddie Hearn has worked with him before and I am sure, possible can work with him again.
Who else can challenge?
However, moving forward, all four fighters are capable of being on the pound for pound list at the same time. All four fighters have talked about fighting at least one of the quartet and the way things are going, there could even be several rematches amongst them.
If that wasn’t enough, we could throw in 22 year old Ryan Garcia, who is now with Matchroom. He is 22-0 and will have a mouth watering fight against England’s Luke Campbell in December, bizarrely for the WBC interim lightweight title.
Both fighters add something to the division. 2012 Olympic gold medal winner Campbell is 33. He got a lot of credit in his points loss to Lomachenko and the talk is, if he comes through Garcia, he could challenger Lopez. On the other hand, if Garcia wins, there is talk about him challenging Haney for the outright WBC title.
As you can see, there is so many plots and subplots at the very top of the lightweight division. This is a division that seems to be one of the very best in boxing, with at least four of its top fighters having p4p quality. This can only bode well for boxing in the present as well as the future and with it’s exciting potential, we could really be at the start of a very special era in the sport…. But lets not mention the “golden” word just yet.
