MUCH like an unruly baby, boxing, in terms of making fights, tends to all of a sudden complain of selective listening to. Typically, it hears solely what it desires to listen to and acts accordingly. It refuses to do because it’s advised and will as an alternative act on a whim, doing no matter it’s that makes it really feel good at any explicit time. Often this results in mismatches, in addition to rematches no one requested for.
Mismatches, it’s true, will ceaselessly be an element of the game’s cloth, not solely throughout a prospect’s journey but additionally in the course of the journey of a so-called “world” champion whose intention is to maintain maintain of the belt relatively than danger creating some type of legacy. Just as irritating as a mismatch, nevertheless, are rematches no one requested for and no one, save for the defeated fighter, wanted to witness a second time – or, in the case of final 12 months’s shambolic heavyweight battle between Tyson Fury and Derek Chisora, a third time.
That, sadly, was maybe the mom of all pointless fights. We knew this going in and then acquired affirmation on the night time when Chisora, for all his bravery, did not land a glove on Fury by means of the ten rounds they shared. Annoyingly, in addition to being a battle no one wished to see, it was a battle that may have benefited no one concerned, aside from perhaps financially, which, one may argue, is exactly what provides a pointless battle a degree.
Still, as regrettable because it was, it occurred and that’s all there may be to it. (Only Chisora, the one seduced by the payday, must at some point decide up the tab.) We can in all probability say the identical concerning the two fights Devin Haney and George Kambosos shared final 12 months as properly. The first of these was uninteresting and one-sided, whereas the second, contracted and due to this fact unavoidable, was pointless in the intense, merely a replay of battle one.
Which is what a foul rematch is: repetition. It is repeating one thing no one requested to see once more on the off probability that it will likely be both higher than final time or produce a unique end result. The need to have one other go is sensible from a fighter’s level of view, naturally, for they all the time imagine they are higher than they are – must, in reality – and will, till the day they retire, by no means hand over hope of profitable. Yet, from the surface, when already granted proof, it’s typically exhausting to know the worth of a rematch clause past merely the necessity for management and a top-up payday.
Take, as an illustration, the proposed rematch between Chris Eubank Jnr and Liam Smith. That was nearly as good as confirmed on Valentine’s Day and will presumably materialise later this 12 months, simply months after Smith stopped Eubank Jnr fairly decisively inside 4 rounds in Manchester. It will, as a result of of the names concerned and the dramatic nature of their earlier battle, little doubt garner a lot of consideration and perhaps even do some respectable pay-per-view buys. However, given neither Smith nor Eubank Jnr had been world champions earlier than battle one, it might be argued that Smith, in beating Eubank Jnr the best way he did, shouldn’t truly must grant the loser a rematch.
By doing so, in any case, Smith runs the chance of not solely undoing his good work in February but additionally spending the complete 12 months getting ready for and preventing only one opponent. That, for Smith, may be okay when taking into the account the cash concerned. Yet, at 34, one wonders whether or not his ambitions stretch past the world of Chris Eubank Jnr. Indeed, with the WBO lately ordering Janibek Alimkhanuly to defend his belt in opposition to Smith, it might be attention-grabbing to know which of the 2 fights Smith, had been he not contracted to rematch Eubank Jnr, would relatively take: the one which constitutes going over previous floor for a good wedge of money or the one that provides him the prospect of turning into a two-weight WBO champion.
Chris Eubank Jnr and Liam Smith (LAWRENCE LUSTIG/BOXXER)
Smith isn’t the one one caught, thoughts. This week former WBO girls’s middleweight champion Savannah Marshall gave a weird interview to Sky Sports throughout which she each said her intention to have a rematch with Claressa Shields and blamed a earlier loss in opposition to Shields, final October, on the sport plan concocted by her coach, Peter Fury. Listening to her discuss, it was exhausting to come back to phrases with (a) the benefit with which Marshall had handed the buck and (b) how assured she was of beating Shields, somebody who had dominated her final 12 months, in a rematch.
The cynic, of course, will say pre-fight confidence and the pursuit of a payday are interchangeable ideas in a sport like boxing, which is often true. Certainly, for Marshall there isn’t a larger battle than a Shields rematch and this she may have by now accepted. It is probably going why she has as soon as once more taken to promoting the rivalry and why, in that very same Sky Sports interview, she talked about desirous to battle at St James Park earlier than reminding us all of the very fact Newcastle United, the group who play there, are now Saudi-owned.
Anyway, if these are the rematches few of us want, assume of those that would slip away. Think of the truth that Leigh Wood and Michael Conlan might by no means battle once more, regardless of the thrilling nature of their 2022 “Fight of the Year”, and that Wood might now as an alternative chase a return with Mauricio Lara, who stopped him in seven rounds on February 18. Think, too, how Jack Catterall will need to have felt when Josh Taylor withdrew from their proposed rematch in March as a result of of harm and shortly after that turned his consideration in direction of a battle with Teofimo Lopez, leaving Catterall confused and the remaining of us fearing Taylor vs Catterall II could be destined by no means to occur.
We ought to maybe anticipate it by now, I suppose. This is boxing, in any case; the game that on Christmas Day would retailer a Haribo ring inside a Tiffany field simply to see the look of disappointment on the recipient’s face upon opening it.
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