After the Kelly Pavlik-Jermain Taylor fight last night, I was flipping through the channels and heard one of the sports talking heads describe it as something along the lines of, "a rare time when boxing actually gave us a good fight."
But that got me thinking, and looking at the schedule of upcoming fights, good fights are actually not rare at all. In fact, 2008 is shaping up to be an excellent year for boxing.
Next week we've got Wladimir Klitschko taking on Sultan Ibragimov, and while neither of those guys is the most graceful fighter you'll ever see, it's a step toward unifying the heavyweight title belts, which would be a great thing for the sport.
March starts out with the rubber match between Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez for Vazquez's Ring Magazine junior featherweight belt. The next week we take a couple more steps toward sorting out the heavyweight division, as Oleg Maskaev fights Samuel Peter and John Ruiz fights Jameel McCline. And that same night the cruiserweight belt is on the line as David Haye fights Enzo Maccarinelli.
A week later, on March 13, comes the early favorite for fight of the year, Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Manny Pacquiao. Ring Magazine calls Pacquiao the second-best pound-for-pound fighter in the world and Marquez the third best. On April 19 we've got Bernard Hopkins vs. Joe Calzaghe, who are the fourth- and fifth-best pound-for-pound fighters in the world according to Ring. To have four of the five best fighters regardless of weight class pairing up is something you can easily go two years without seeing. To see it in two months is tremendous.
And then there's America's most popular boxer, Oscar De La Hoya, who has a fight scheduled for HBO in May and will take on the world's best boxer, Floyd Mayweather, later this year.
Bottom line: For all the talk about the death of boxing, we've got a very good year of fights ahead of us.
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