It doesn't matter whether the heavyweight division contains fighters as good as the old days. What matters is that they fight each other and more frequently. Make stories. Make people care. With fights for Itauma, Wilder, Fury, Wardley & Dubois scheduled......perhaps there is new hope?
In the promotion surrounding Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's recent dip into the shallow waters of the action-heist genre, the mediocre The Rip, Damon revealed that film makers are actively encouraged to put the biggest set-piece action sequence at the beginning of their movies these days. Capturing an audience requires noise not subtlety. Plot recaps must also be deposited throughout the story, each an illustrative lighthouse for those afflicted by distraction and the draw of the second screen they hold in their hands.
Cinephiles will lament the lost golden era of film of course but the juggernaut of decline dressed in the camouflage of progress is hard to resist. There is a parallel truth in boxing, as elite fighters now box so infrequently and often behind divergent and complex paywalls that too few of them transcend into the mainstream consciousness of their predecessors. This lack of action diminishes the product too. A skill practiced, is a skill improved. Fighters at the pinnacle are better paid than perhaps ever they were, as are many one step beneath, but there are few who would have outwitted those who came before them.
In those good old days that never quite existed in the way nostalgia insists, there was, nevertheless, an obligation for the best to box each other in order to secure the truly big purses. The life altering money. At some point, observers argue about the placement of the rubicon, scarcity replaced quality. The secondary, but arguably more important truth to this relative inactivity - one or two fights per year and a year's sabbatical as common as world-champions, and there are far too many of those too - is the loss of storylines and the public's familiarity with the actors playing the key parts. Rivalries are not what they were and too frequently remain unrequited.
For a few weeks that begin soon, the heavyweight division, that most storied of all weight classes, hosts a sequence of bouts that will pitch many of the leading protagonists against each other. It feels refreshing. Perhaps a reboot of a once much-loved show is upon us just as the quartet of most recent significance head for the final curtain.
March 28th
Moses Itauma v Jermaine Franklin
Fast moving truck meets slow moving guile. Itauma is the most exciting of those waiting beyond the current veterans. He may reach one of them in time to push them out of the door. Until then he fights the division's most robust gatekeeper; part slippery, part mauler.
April 4th
Deontay Wilder v Derek Chisora
Wild old puncher meets tired old work horse. The heavyweight division in any era is no country for old men. Chisora absorbs. Wilder punches with thunder. It is a recipe for damage. But it will entertain, and expose both as the diminished forty somethings they are.
April 11th
Tyson Fury v Arslanbek Makhmudov
Noisy old war ship faces limited Russian totem. Fury has been so many versions of heavyweight it is difficult to speculate what impact age and inactivity will have had as it will be subject to the style he adopts for his latest comeback. Reflexes will be dulled. Irrefutable. Punch resistance punctured? Probably. The big Russian? Game, until it gets a bit tough. Which it probably will. For both men.
May 9th
Fabio Wardley v Daniel Dubois
Aggressive young scrapper tackles big swinging enigma. There is a world-title belt draped on this bout between the two Brits, but in truth it is simply a pair of top-10 contenders trading blows to prove who is best qualified to step forward behind Fury, Usyk, Joshua and co.
The key beyond these bouts, is busyness. Keep the stories rolling. Like the good old days.
Like when Holmes couldn't find Foreman and Lewis couldn't corner Bowe?
Quiet, and eat your popcorn.