MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Boxing Wish List: Top 5 Fights To Make In 2021

Episode Date: December 31, 2020

Brian Campbell looks ahead to the new year in boxing and breaks down his five best fights to make. Balancing the realistic with the hopeful and dreamy, BC targets big returns for Canelo Alvarez, unbeaten welterweight champions and a pair of charismatic heavyweights. --------------------------------- 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. The dumpster fire that was 2020 just about all the way behind us in the sport of boxing. Time to look ahead as hope springs eternal just a bit to the fights we can hope, want, wish, love to see in 2021. My name is Brian Campbell. Of course, the BBC, the big beige one, one half of your tri-weekly morning combat duo alongside Luke Thomas, uh, giving you a little bonus action on the box side right now, coming at you with the five fights. I most want to see in the sport of boxing in 2021,

a mixture of the fights. We'll likely see the fights we wish we could see, all sort of coming together in one little hodgepodge for you. Let's get the business out of the way right away. Like this video if you do like it. Please subscribe to what we're doing on Morning Combat. The first source you need to go to for all things fight talk, MMA, boxing, and beyond. Three times live a week. All the bonuses you can handle.

All the live chats. All the interviews, all that. And then some tall, pale and handsome. It is your, uh, your homemade haircutted BC back at it. Ready to go. Look, 2020 was not the year. Uh, many of us hope for our best laid plans in anything, uh, surrounding life boxing, obviously right with that decent start to the

year, got the big super fight of Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder, too. Then quarantine hit. Slow getting back. The sport was able to rebound to a certain degree, creating these bubbles, having a few super fights to close. Things like Spence Garcia, Gervonta Davis, Leo Santa Cruz, et cetera. Anthony Joshua returning. But really, it was a year largely put on pause and that seemed to

delay the the hopefully inevitable build to these big super fights that we want that we need that we deserve as fans so let me look ahead to the five fights I most want to see for this new year when can we be hopeful that we see a lot of these I think a lot of it may end up be dependent upon how many uh how quickly crowds can return we've've seen, you know, 10, 15,000 in the Alamo dome, AT&T stadium, so to speak, but it's just not going to be the same as when you can put on a big fight. You can open the tickets up. You can either get 18,000 people in Las Vegas paying way too much money, or you can get, you know, 50,000 people in the dome, go to England, get 80, 90,000 in the stadium. That type of economic difference. It's hard to make some of these super big fights, get you know 50 000 people in the dome go to england get 80 90 000 in the stadium that type

of economic difference it's hard to make some of these super big fights but here's a mixture of the ones we need to see and number one you go no further than the heavyweight division uh we need this fight for the health of the sport it's anthony joshua it's tyson fury it's all four recognized world heavyweight titles biggest fight you can make in boxing with still active guys who matter in the sport right you can bring floyd mayweather back and get a ton of pay-per-view buys i mean if you did floyd manny part two tomorrow i mean look you're going to do two three million pay-per-view buys obviously you fight a jake paul brother uh you bring in 54 year old mike tyson you can make some circus carnival fights that they are making by the way that would be really big but nothing's bigger than uh joshua and fury fury

unbeaten lineal champion the guy who beat the guy wbc champion he put dionte wilder away against anthony joshua who regained his trio of world titles in 2019 had a nice title defense against kubra pulevin his only appearance this. These guys are at the peak of their primes. They're charismatic. They sell. This fight matters in so many ways because boxing, heavyweight division is the gateway drug, right? It's how you bring in the casuals.

They want the old school feels of one division, one face, one name, one champion. And to have a four belt title holder for the first time in this modern era of where we have to deal with these four belts, it would be huge. It would be huge because, you know, one, people, again, are just sick of, well, this guy's the champion, but there's that other guy that's the champion. It would eliminate that. It would also mean that, like, it's not, you know,

Sultan Ibrahimov against Vladimir Klitschko. These are two guys that if they're not crossover household names, at least in the U S they're on the verge of being for even the most, you know, push boxing away, casual mainstream sports fan and Britain. This is the biggest fight of all time. I mean, this is a 100,000 seat soccer stadium type fight. And even though Tyson Fury would rightfully be favored right now, because we've

seen Anthony Joshua lose in 2019 because Fury's coming off of a you know a knockout of a domination of Deontay Wilder that is either the future in his evolved state as a fighter who's now looking to be more offensive with a new trainer and Javon Sugarhill or maybe it's just a one-night sort of aberration because Deontay Wilder had a horrible night at the office and really nothing went well and lived behind a bevy of excuses as to why afterwards. Either way, you got Fury coming in at 6'9", long arms, can box, just a unique historic heavyweight against a guy in Joshua 6'6", who's just a machine, just built, can box and punch. Both have been a little bit chinny at times obviously anthony joshua has the much more uh maligned and questionable chin in this case but uh regardless of who you thought would win if you think aj has more of a chance than sort of recent history would

tell us it's a monster monster fight can we see it in 2021 i think we can i think the optimism of the promoters and the networks um it's good that we want to do crosstown promotion. It's good that ESPN and, and Eddie Hearn and DAZN are, are sort of just going, yeah, we can make this work, right? DAZN just launched this sort of quasi sneaky pay-per-view plan ahead of the last Canelo fight, which shows you, they have a way to do pay-per-view to make these two network deals happen. So the fact, the,

the fact that everybody's willing to do it after the headache we went through and not seeing Deontay Wilder and Anthony Joshua be made when they were both undefeated champions, this is great. It's just the problem is the mandatories in front of both guys. Tyson Fury, depending on who you talk to, still has that mandatory he has to do, which is the winner of the Alexander Povetkin-Dillian White rematch. Of course, AJ, Anthony Joshua has Alexander Usyk in front of him as a mandatory. And that's not an easy fight by any means. I mean, that can be a, you know,

upset city for all we know. Can you pay people a step aside? Yes, you can. Is there a chance the alphabets could come together and actually do right for boxing and say, we will allow this unification to happen. Of course, that'd be great. Alphabets don't typically do what's best for boxing though, right? Because this goes against their own business plan of wanting their title regularly defended and purse fees paid and all that.

But I think even if both had to do mandatories in the first half of the year, we can see this in the second half of 2020, provided they win. There's so much long-term potential in what it could mean for the health of the sport. I think it would be an exciting fight no matter what. I don't see how this could be boring.

I think we'll see it, and we need it. And I love it. And Fury would be favored, and I would expect him to win, but it's not going to be easy. Joshua can punch. He's a finisher with two hands. He's an educated knockout artist in there when he's got you hurt.

And Fury may be huge at six foot nine and have unnatural speed and reflexes for a guy that big and a great IQ and all that. But AJ66 with long arms, he can get to him. And it's not like Tyson Fury is the biggest puncher in the world where we have to be worried that if Joshua was facing Deontay Wilder, we'd be worried that he can get sparked early. I don't think he can get sparked early against Tyson Fury. I think this would be a real fight, a chess match. If it stayed a chess match, Tyson Fury, I think could win it comfortably, but this turns into a fight as we saw in the Klitschko Anthony Joshua 2017 classic. All bets are off. You never know. You got a favor Fury, but you never know. Need to see it. it heck need to see two

or three for these guys need to see deontay wilder parachute back into this discussion if he can get a big win right like that that andy ruiz jr by the way is getting in shape for a heavyweight comeback although please pbc do not do a pay-per-view with him against chris areola for the love of god please don't but uh look heavyweight division renaissance it's fun let's do it let's keep it going number two fight i need to see on my wish list in 2021 uh look if this is your number one yeah join the club there's there's no shame this is the best fight you can make i said fury joshua was the best fight you can make to attract the casuals to put on a big spectacle in an event the actual best fight you can make in boxing from a critical pound for pound we need to see it now

generational standpoint yes welterweight title unification unbeaten champions errol spence jr terrence crawford ah we're getting close where this has been on the the it's been on on the number one of our list of fights we need to see for so long that you fear with both guys aging and, and, and Errol Spence recently, not, you know, being like, yeah, bring it to me doing more of the stiff arm on the a side, come to me, blah, blah, blah. You fear that we're going to get a little bit too late when we finally see this, that one of them will take a loss first, or that it will be like Mayweather Pacquiao where they'll be a little bit past their prime by the time they fight. And we won't get what we're supposed to get and what are we supposed to get here two guys vying for the crown of of best

welterweight in the world and best fighter in the world yes I have Canelo right now number one on my problem list you can have either Spencer Crawford and really there's not a ton of argument you can put against you although I think Canelo deserves number one but if they fought each other the winner is your best fighter in the sport and I think it's this generation's sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, part one, 1981, you know, uh, it's, it's that level of fight because I think both of these guys are all time. Great. And in a, in a, in a great welterweight era, by the way, with, with an aging Pacquiao still around Porter Croft or, I mean, uh, Thurman.

Oogas and all. Yeah, I mean, on and on. Look, it's a deep time. It's a great time to be alive at Welterweight. But we got to see these guys face each other. So how do we get there? Can we get there? I think we can get there in 2021. And I think the biggest holdup is that although we've seen breakthroughs of late with Fox

and ESPN working together for the Fury-Wilder rematch, and, you know, talks of Joshua and Fury working together and DAZN getting involved in this sort of two-network pay-per-view deal. It's not that Crawford Spence can't be made right now. I mean, it's difficult with Bob Arum on one side and Al Heyman of the PBC on the other, but it's not impossible. It's just that everyone has to want it, and Terrence Crawford's got to get out of his top-ranked deal. I mean, that's the bottom line.

It's not his fault. In some ways, is it top-ranked's fault? Well, I don't know. It depends on who you can believe. Has top-ranked in good faith tried to make fights for Terrence Crawford against PBC guys and offered good money? Some think they offered Sean Porter $3 million to come fight Crawford. But if you're Al Heyman and PBC and you never accepted any of these offers, you also can understand it.

You wouldn't support it because in boxing at the end of the day, what's right for the fighters, the fans, the health of the sport is that we make the fights that are hard to make. We make the fights that matter, not wait and you come to us. But I guess you could understand if that's the case,

if Al Heyman is playing long-term chess and saying, look, dude, Bud Crawford, eventually your deal is going to run out. Come to us to the pbc pool sign with us you can fight any friggin welter weight you want maybe except for pacquiao who was pbc for the last couple years but his his uh contract expired if it's as simple as that i get it it's boxing right you know the a-side has the control it's why Errol Spence is talking more about 60, 40, 70, 30, then yeah, I want to fight Crawford. I want to prove my, my greatness. The reality is neither is afraid of each other. Both want to prove their greatness,

but boxing is a, is a long-term financial chess game. And there's a lot of posturing. If, if all reports are to be true, then Terence crawford has one more fight left on his top rank espn deal and that would push him to like next october being a free agent which means you could make this fight at the end of next year provided crawford fights out his deal and then whoever i mean could could could top rank secure a manny fight and do a big pay-per-view for crawford yes could they also just give him whomever to try to end the deal? Since obviously Bob Arum and Terrence Crawford, not friends lately in the media that could happen as well. Uh, is it impossible that all sides could come together right now? Not impossible, but not likely the most likely scenario here is that Crawford becomes a free agent follows,

you know, the Floyd Mayweather blueprint, blueprint, I'm sorry, the plan signed with Al Heyman and PBC the second half of this year, and either we make that fight right away or we build even further to that fight, which is not what any of us would want, but I also could see that happening. Like maybe each fight one more time with the whole idea that the winners face off. There's risk in that, the old marination, Bob Arum, right? Your Orcus Gamboa, Juan Manuel Lopezopez the boxing hardcores know what i mean when i say marination uh yeah i don't want to see any more marination i think we have to wait at the very least until

next fall you know until late 2021 i'm optimistic we'll see it before they get too old but we're getting close we're getting close where you know terence carford 33 34 years old is it you know is he gonna not be the same guy that he was the last couple years toiling against b c level competition when all the a's were over there at top rank um man i want to see this fight i'm not again i'm never defending the broken business structure in, especially if you're an MMA fan, you're watching this and you're like, BC, like enough, dude. Are these guys going to fight or not? If they're not going to fight, I don't care. I'm not going to watch boxing anymore. I get that.

You're spoiled by the UFC's control over the fighters. And it only happened that way because Dana and Zufa rescued a dead sport that couldn't get on TV and rebuilt it in their own house with their own rules. It's a privilege to be a high level UFC fan, right? The best fight the best all the time. They also don't get paid maybe what they should another topic for another day, but we'll pause the action here for a little hemp infused seltzer from the folks at Kalo. Big fan of this, by the way, don't always drink hemp infused seltzer, when i do it's certainly the uh the the calo uh strawberry watermelon so uh all righty then um this fight would be fantastic i don't think we've had a fight like this save for mayweather pacquiao which again did come too late i mean maybe golovkin canelo was a little bit like this although again that one also came a

little bit too late because canelo for all i say good about him did wait triple g out a bit i can't remember the last time we had uh this much stakes on a huge fight with both guys that high pound for pound and look it's not it's not lost on me that when andre ward and sergey sergey kovalev fought each other the first time about three years ago, that was for one versus two and pound for pound or one versus three or two versus three, however you had it. That was close. They didn't have the same commercial relevancy as these welterweights. Those two pay-per-views they did died on the vine for HBO pay-per-view.

And also, people don't look at the light heavyweight title with the same reverence in the modern pay-per-view era that we look at the welterweight title. There's still classic titles in boxing, right? It's heavyweight. It's middleweight. It's welterweight. Welterweight's your sexy money pay-per-view division. Sometimes it's featherweight. Not really.

It's really never any other title. It's not bridgeweight. I'll tell you that much um but you know like the prestige in this one the skill level of both both being unbeaten champions coming together in a unification i mean this is some classic old-timey awesome shit right here this is why we watch the sport so uh boxing gods if you're up there right you know can you please make this before i either get old um spence getting some heat for his lack of like yeah bring it on call you know i get it but again it's posturing okay he wants this fight he knows what it means to him he knows if you want to be the guy of this era you got to beat this guy the problem is the mayweather pacquiao model has shown us to build build build build and wait and they got by the way, that Mayweather Pacquiao didn't die

when Pacquiao got upset by Tim Bradley and that screwy decision. That it didn't die when Pacquiao got knocked out cold by Juan Manuel Marquez in their fourth fight. That Pacquiao bounced back and rebuilt himself. And really, I mean, for all the negatives we'll say about the timing of Mayweather Pacquiao, somehow it was still one versus two in their division,

one versus two pound for pound at the time was still one versus two in their division one versus two pound for pound at the time and one versus two in their era I don't think we can necessarily say that last part yet on Crawford Spence in terms of the era right this is Canelo's era at the moment when I say era it's a mixture of course of commercial value with with like paper you know with with palm for palm value you know commercial and critical together it's canelo's time right now you know he took the baton from mayweather and pacquiao who had taken the baton from oscar de la joya who had a more higher level commercial run than he did critical right early you know late 90s oscar was there critically 2000s he was just the big draw but you know Roy Jones critically before that the

heavyweights Tyson and company uh commercially before that it's Canelo's time right now but the winner of Crawford Spence you know is going to go a long way and and just you know the thing is though you don't want it just once you don't want to say you know what if you had a crystal ball and you said BC we're going to get it it's going to be almost too late but still awesome and it's going to be a great fight but it's going to be one fight and it's going to be a year and a half from now no that i want it right now and then i want it a second time and then i want it a third time right and i don't know it doesn't always happen in the huge big fights like we we should have saw de la joya trinidad too you know sometime after that we didn, uh, even Hearns Leonard, which I'm talking about.

They didn't rematch until what, you know, eight years later. And, uh, and you know, it was, it just wasn't the same, even though it was a good fight and Hearns kind of got screwed in that draw. Uh, I want it and I, and I want it again if we have to. And maybe that's why triple G Canelo was the last big fight. We can say that came a little late, but it delivered both times. Yeah. You had the controversy of the scoring, but it was two pound for pound level guys who

were trying to make their bid historically to their critical standing in the sport. And they came together and both fought their heart out in one and two. And, uh, both had arguments to have one both elevated themselves it's rare when we get that right it's rare when that happens where everything i know we again we had a deal with uh tainted meat we had a deal with uh 118 110 from uh you know adolescent bird as danny jacobs would say adelaide bird there but we still got a great fight that delivered on the highest level and I think there's no way Crawford Spence couldn't be even if it was a

chess match of all tacticalness it would still be compelling in the same way that the second half of the Lomachenko Lopez fight this year which was very much a high level chess match still was insanely intriguing because of the skill level the strategy that all that please spence crawford is all that and then some okay it's a in a bag of chips and a three piece and a side of mozzie doll it is it is let's make it bob make it bob you're out of the equation you may not be part of this equation somebody's gonna make it i'm gonna be there please hopefully it's 2021 i'm i'm gonna say if we don't get it in 2020 at the very least it'll be ready to be built for early 2022 god why does boxing suck what you know the whole larry merchant thing about like you can't fix

the sport but you can't kill it it's so true you can't kill this thing because anytime they resurface with a big one it still matters to you because boxing at the end of the day is the best sport ever. Max Cullerman's ridiculous, you know, thing that he always says is true, where if you were in a city and there's four blocks around you and a sporting event of each of your favorite sports broke out boxing on one corner, basketball on the other tennis on the other, whatever it is, you'd run to the boxing. Okay. Cause at the end of the day,

we all love fights and we love, and you know, MMA can get there and they can get close, but there's this classic element to mano y mano boxing. Who's the man? Spence Crawford, please. All right. Deep breath. All right, Eric, let me put some water on your balls. Deep breath. Now I'm trying to get my timer here to make sure I don't go over. Number three, Canelo Alvarez. deep breath now i'm trying to get my timer here to make sure i don't go over um number three canelo alvarez but canelo alvarez versus whom that's the discussion right here i know you want

me to say triple g part three because to casual fans it's the biggest it may be the biggest fight you can make in the sport to casual fans right now i mean i argue that joshua fury would be and should be bigger and could be but you know name value wise in terms of a fight that has delivered before uh and the storyline of triple g going 24 amazing rounds with canelo and coming out of it with what one scorecard in his favor was it was it one first fight was a draw it was the bad draw card from don trello love you don bad draw card there was the 11 draw card from Don Trello. Love you, Don. Bad draw card. There was the 118, 110 awful card. Triple G got one scorecard there.

I don't think he got, or maybe he got one in the, in the second. Was it a majority decision win for, for Canelo? Either way for triple G to fight that great in those two fights and come out of it with not even a draw, not, you know, two law, you know, sorry, a draw and a loss and not even, uh, you know, storyline wise. Yeah. I get why you would want this fight. The problem is that triple G is not the same guy. He's not all right. Rewatch his

recent fight. He's just not the same guy. Canelo is so much better even now than he was, uh, in the, you know, heading into the first triple G fight that, you know, I think Canelo owns him. Like remember the, the great, um, Manny Pacquiao Eric Morales trilogy right we forget sometimes that it's a trilogy because the second half of it was pretty one-sided first half an instant freaking classic from 2005 with with Eric Morales taking the close decision he went lefty in the final round you know did you love it I loved it thank you thank you Larry Merchant um rematch people forget even though Pacquiao stopped him late Morales was winning that fight that was a great fight third fight hot knife through butter right Morales sat down basically no moss was like dude I can't deal with this buzzsaw I fear that's good

that would happen to triple g in the third fight so would I want to see it for a lot of reasons would I be happy with it of course big fight for the sport it's not it's not on my wish list though it's in the top 10 not in the top five and even though canelo wants to stay at 168 and unify all the titles and i respect that so you think bc is going to throw at you really joe saunders caleb plant david benavidez if he could pick back up his old title uh maybe yeah great fights would love them would freaking love them but i think the best fight you can make with canelo right now uh critically and eventually commercially is that one that cliff rolled mentioned on twitter that i mentioned on morning combat a couple episodes ago jamal charlo canelo alvarez versus jamal charlo is the fight that I number three most want to see for next

year are we going to see it no no we're probably not going to see it Canelo's laid out what what matters to him unifying belts at 168 he's going to have that stay busy title uh mandatory defense against Avni Yildirim in in February going to come back probably against Billy Joe Saunders in May then come back one more time in September. Shout out to Canelo for three appearances. The third one would be what, uh, probably triple G maybe, uh, maybe Caleb plant, but I think it's more likely that Canelo right now stays on the zone

matchroom sport, Eddie Hearn side of the bracket. Eddie Hearn right now has, you know, triple G he's got, uh, he's got connections to Billy Joe Saundersunders he's got uh danny jacobs i mean i you know i'm not like canelo's gonna go out his way to rematch danny jacobs but i think it's more likely canelo signs a two or three fight deal to stay where he is get that done try to unify the belts and then see what's next and even though jamal charlo said he would move up to 168 i think he would if the opportunity was there um and maybe he should if you really think about it because they're in the pbc land there's just not a ton of there's just no names sorry not forget a ton there's no names at 160 right i mean unless jared hurd and company move up from 154 maybe he should move up

to 68 anyway on the pbc side where you have caleb plant david benavidez andre durell it was katigi a couple other names that you'd care about but the reason why i love this fight is because if you're going to create a blueprint of what's going to give canelo trouble and i respect him that he goes out of his way to find this trouble and prove you wrong you know i fought lara trout floyd when he probably shouldn't have um is that billy joe saunders could give him a tough night at the office he's tricky fights in a negative style all that stuff and i don't care if you hate billy joe i mean you should hate billy joe he's a he's a troll but he's just a tough out in the ring and certainly i like caleb plant's hand speed i think

benavidez would make a fun fight because of the size and his willingness to brawl but jamal charlo has a combination of size speed power ring iq and balls that i don't think anyone else in this sphere around 60 and 68 okay 175 if you're luke thomas and you want him to fight better be i get it dude that'd be a phenomenal challenge i just don't think he's going to go out of his way i mean better be there's like no commercial imprint in boxing and that's a tough tough tough fight uh germal charlo has the best full package i believe whoa check out that check out the unit on that guy of all these guys we're talking about and i think commercially he could really get there in a quick way it would involve though like if canelo announced that uh he was going to fight yildirim and then he was looking to fight caleb plant in the spring i could say wow maybe the fall maybe he stays with pbc maybe the fall we get that jermall charlotte it's most likely that if we do

it's going to be 2022 and then by then it might be huge because germall might you know who just had his pay-per-view debut with his brother and looked fantastic in a close tough fight uh with uh you know the damn ukrainian guy the sergey derivinchenko um that fight right now i mean i could talk myself into germall charlo winning that fight uh you know canelo's the favorite damn right canelo's a favorite but uh you know germal's got a stiff jab his foot like canelo doesn't go out of his way to fight guys with quick feet you know golovkin had an ability a smart ability to cut off the ring in that powerful jab as a weapon he was not able to land his right hand against canelo canelo too quick for him but charlo's got the quickness the iq and that big right hand that's that's fast enough that Canelo can't be nonchalant about it.

I mean, that's a fight. That's a fight. It's a chess match, too. And it's a fight. That'd be the number three fight that I would want to see the most in 2021. No, we're not going to see it, though. But I'm here for it. Okay?

Just the same. It's in play, though. It's possible. Just probably not going to see it based on where Canelo is headed number four folks here we go BC on a roll right now okay fight I most want to see in 2021 lightweight division Teo Fimo Lopez Jr. and by the way you could insert any name next to him for the fight you most want to see right if you say i want to see lomachenko again that's great you want to see him against devin haney that's great you want to see him against ryan garcia if he gets past luke campbell this weekend that's awesome i want to see him

against gervonta davis will it happen in 2021 no it's not gonna happen they're on opposite sides of the political sphere one on espn top rank the other on PBC, Fox and Showtime. And I think because they're so young, right? I think Tao's 23. What's Gervonta? I think he might've just turned 26. They're so young that it's not likely that they fight early like this. And it's not likely that all parties go out of their way to make it because there's more

money to be made if they do it down the road. And that's the reality. Both guys are just putting their imprint in there right lopez upsetting lomachenko on espn big ratings huge win gervonta knocking out leo santa cruz in his pay-per-view debut just showing you that he's the goods not good i get i get leo's moving up from weight he's a smaller fighter but gervonta's got titles at 30 and 35 albeit a secondary one at 135 this would be a hellaciously great fight at lightweight both can box both can punch both are super athletic i think teo is even more athletic and quicker and you know he put

gervonta into counter punching mode and we'd see bull and matador and this would be amazing we're not going to see it uh teo could still have a monster year and i believe he's going to go out of his way to fight people but he's he's playing the a side card right now again not holding it against him when you understand boxing but he's basically like look i'm the a plus side meaning if you're going to fight me you're going to take a a small amount i'm going to take most of it okay yeah i want to fight everybody but i'm the guy you got to come to me giovanni's not going to fight me, you're going to take a small amount. I'm going to take most of it, okay? Yeah, I want to fight everybody, but I'm the guy you got to come to me. Gervonta's not going to come to him. That's really the problem.

They both look at themselves as the future pillars of the sport, and I think it's more likely that Ryan Garcia would fight Gervonta than he would Teofimo at this point. I think that's a matchup they think they can outbox Gervonta and win. I don't know. I'd pick Gervonta in that one. Who would I pick in Teofimo Lopez and Gervonta Davis? I don't know.

And that's why I love this fight. And I think a lot of people who are against Gervonta for his, maybe his matchmaking or his outside the ring issues, arrests and stuff, which is legit is issues making way. They don't maybe always realize how, how good he really is. And that's because he hasn't had to show it. He't had to outbox people he blows people away it was a fun

fight with leo as long as it lasted leo came to win but as we said if you're santa cruz and you don't have big power the more you try to win the more you're going to open yourself up to get served and he he was you know he got he got two tears here's two tickets to not paradise any money here's two tickets to uh fire and brimstone uh Uh, we'll see if you get out of there. Um, shout out to Leo for doing that right. And his biggest fight of his life. He, he, he went for it, but, uh, Tao and Gervonta is just some good ass ish. And let's not forget about the five pillars, the foundation boxing's future. I talk about these guys all the time here's the group we're talking about teofimo lopez jr gervante davis ryan garcia and devin haney even though

devin's coming off of a somewhat flat performance against gamboa in which he dominated by the way those are four of the five who's the fifth guy the guy that we do not talk about enough the guy who is in number five of my five fight wish list for 2021 Shakur Stevenson former featherweight champ unbeaten 2016 Olympic gold medalist has moved up to 130 probably going to open the year against the winner of the Jamel Herring Carl Frampton title fight but you know who he wants to close the year he He's 23, by the way. He wants the guy that I want him to fight the most. I want Shakur Stevenson Vasily Lomachenko to close out my 2021. That's number five on my list. Guys, that has the potential. It's crossroads, right? Lomachenko at 32, your former pound for pound king. He came on too late against Lopez. He had really bad excuses.

He's got to figure out this year which direction is he going all right is the magic slowly going is he going to move down in weight again to try to re-establish himself at a weight class that's better suited for his size is he going to keep what has been his legacy of taking on the most dangerous toughest challenges available he fought orlando salido for a world title in his second pro fight. That's ridiculous. Will he take on a crossroads type thing against Shakur Stevenson at 130? Heck, do it at 135. I'm sure Shakur would move up for it. He's eventually going to be a welterweight, I believe, even though it's a big jump from starting your career at 126 and then going up

to welterweight. I think he's so good. the comparisons to shakur in floyd mayweather we cringe when we compare anybody to floyd but if there's anybody in this game who has early not pretty not all money mayweather pretty boy floyd mayweather looks and vibes and feels dude it's shakur stevenson let's not forget that at 21 in 1999 floyd mayweather was your boxing fighter of the year and to some people had become the pound for pound King in like 2000, 2001, right in that area. It's not out of the question that Shakur Stevenson at 23 next year could, could have a fighter of the year campaign could, could ascend the pound for pound list because he's amazing.

His hand speed is knowledge of boxing. He's just two, three, four steps ahead of everybody. Does he have the power to be a finisher? Doesn't look like he does, especially as he moves up and wait, he says he does. He's going to have to prove that he hasn't had to, or he's relied more on the quickness and the shoe shining. Look, Floyd was a puncher early. We forget that. Right. But as he rose again, he had to become a different type of fighter.

I think Shakur is, he's not Floyd Mayweather. He's not going to be Floyd Mayweather, forget that right but as he rose again he had to become a different type of fighter i think shakur is he's not fluid mayweather he's not gonna be fluid mayweather but he's got the best chance to to dominate people in that same level him against loma chanko you know my favorite kind of fight people love brawls i love brawls i love goddie ward i love fights of the year let me make sure i'm not going too long here i love a lot of stuff my favorite type of fight high speed chess okay think de la jolla mosley won think two technically amazing guys with speed boxing ability who start off playing chess and that's chess gets sped up it's not a brawl it's not an action fight but it's high speed brilliance this fight would be high freaking speed brilliance um

can we see it there's no reason why we can't they both fight for top rank in espn it depends on what lomachenko wants to do what are in his targets can he get a lopez rematch teo says no right now can loma offer up you know a very small amount of money for his purse and get in there i don't know but this would be a monster fight. If Shakur won it, he's an overnight sensation. That's a great song, by the way, off of Tommy by the Who. I'm a sensation. Don't forget the Risen card this weekend.

A lot of people looking forward to that. All right. That's my five right there. You could even talk me into liking Shakakur versus low loma more than any other on the list i know it's a little bit of blasphemic because we want the heavyweight showdown we want the welterweight showdown i know if you're watching this and if you're a hardcore you're like bc what about here's my honorable mentions real quick um canelo triple g3 all the reasons that you want it i want it too i just don't want it as badly as these others.

Josh Taylor, Jose Ramirez, unbeaten versus unbeaten, all four belts at 140. Great fight. We're going to see it. I can't wait. I like Josh Taylor in it. I think Jose Ramirez has had performances better than he actually is, if that makes any sense to you. He's a great fighter.

He maxes himself out. I think Taylor's better. Roman Chocolatito gonzalez juan francisco estrada part two we are going to see it on the zone to open this year uh it's on every every hardcore fans butt list bucket list buggery list whatever you want to say we we want it we need it the first fight was like eight years ago we finally got the rematch chocolatito's back he's resurgent this is great and. And Caleb Plant, David Benavidez. Let's not forget about that.

That's a great fight to make at super middleweight for a title. We thought it was going to be unification. Benavidez lost his title on the scales. Canelo has his title now. It is what it is. It's still Bull versus Matador. And I need to see Caleb Plant in a very tough fight. Yeah, that's a fight with his cock to get.

He has been, though, on the Al Heymano santa cruz let's build this guy into a star because i love him dinner circuit you know he's been fighting the mike lee's he's been fighting the feigen butts is let's fight david benavidez now let's make a big fight i love that fight uh the other ones are to better be against dimitri b vol unifying titles to one beaten light heavyweight champions it'd be great i think better beef is going to stop them though. Better beef stopped him, retired Alexander Vostick in his last fight in 2019, better beef was supposed to come back in December.

Then in January and February, both got pushed back because he got COVID. Unfortunately, he's going to have that mandatory defense. And I think he's going to fight people. And I think it's going to be fun as balls. And I think better beef is a train that you cannot stand in front of even Canelo. I don't like Canelo's chances against him i just don't this

guy's a freaking maniac and he can box and yeah but i want to see him against b-ball this year uh shout out to all you fans and folks i know a lot of you are like dude what happened you promised you're gonna get a lot of rafe bartholomew the boxing hardcore yeah we did we plan on giving to you there's been a lot of scheduling issues there There's been weeks with big MMA fights. We've had a lot of interviews. We want to overfill you with morning combat, but we don't want to overfill you to the point of walking away from the turn styles, right? You're going to see more of Rafe this year. Love, love getting the band back together with that fella doing some fun clips right

there. But please like the video, subscribe morning combat all the time. MK all day nearly every day i mean really it's a it's a movement right now it's an institution i'm brian campbell and um i got two words for you we out yeah