1. Good heavyweight fight this Saturday evening on HBO. Dillian Whyte vs Lucas Browne. Solid competitive fight between two exciting big punchers. Browne's best moment was knocking out Ruslan Chagaev for a piece of the heavyweight title but was then stripped due to a failed drug test. Whyte gave Anthony Joshua a very competitive fight a year or two back before being stopped and subsequently holds wins over Derek Chisora and Robert Helenius. Browne has a punchers chance but I am going with Whyte by decision or late stoppage. Great move by HBO to pick up this fight and show it live from overseas. 6 pm ET start.
2. Steroids in boxing-It is time that penalties for failing tests for steroids in boxing or mma become much more strict and much more enforceable. This is not baseball , this is combat sports where you are training to hit someone in the head as hard and as many times as you can. It is a dangerous sport with potentially severe physical consequences. All fighters know the risks before they step into the ring or the cage. I would be in favor of a one year ban for your first failed test and then a lifetime ban after your second. These sports are dangerous enough, the risk is only multiplied when you step into the ring with someone who has an artificial physical advantage and is trying to punch you in the head. And all fighters are responsible for what they put in their bodies, excuses like Canelo's where he blames his failed test on tainted meat is very suspect to me. Enough is enough.
3. James Toney- I was watching some old James Toney fights the other night and I firmly believe that he would've been a great fighter in any era. I will go a step further and say that the tougher the era the better he would've been. He had the skill and attitude to rise to the occasion. I don't feel that way with most fighters nowadays. I think fighters today may be more physically skilled but toughness and a desire to fight the best and test themselves is nowhere near where it used to be. Part of that is because unfortunately fighters today are not forced to do that although some still do. Complaining about purses, who walks into the ring first, weight and other things have caused fights to fall through. Just remember when two guys can't come to an agreement over 2-3 pounds that Carmen Basilio gave up 9 pounds when he moved up and beat the great Sugar Ray Robinson to win the middleweight title.
4. Floyd Mayweather- First of all , Floyd was the best of the past 20 years but not in the conversation of best of all time. Records don't mean anything, who you fought and when you fought them is what counts. But, he gets a bad rap from people who call him boring and safety first. He became that way as he moved up in weight and used boxing skills to beat bigger men. At the end of his career he was fighting guys at 147 and 154 he still could've made 135. Watch him early in his career when he was fighting at lightweight, he was exciting, could punch and had a mean streak. Two fights that showed that the best were his KO wins against Phillip N'dou and Diego Corrales.
5.ESPN-Do not underestimate the importance of ESPN showing world class title fights with the biggest names in boxing. A good rating for an HBO or Showtime fight may get 750,00 to 1 million viewers. On ESPN they are doing over 2 million a show. Fighters like Lomachenko have become household names to casual sports fans whereas if this was several years ago and he was fighting on HBO at midnight he would not be nearly the star he is now. Credit to Top Rank who have brought boxing back to the mainstream and the results speak for themselves. Vasyl Lomachenko vs Jorge Linares on May 12 is the next great example of this.
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