Before looking ahead to the fights in May, let’s do a quick review of what happened in April. (Click here for my April preview.) While there were no Fight Of The Year candidates and the favorites all won, the bouts I featured were all competitive and should lead to some interesting matchups down the road.
Notes:
-GGG looked ripped and stopped a game Murata in his home country.
-Ryan Garcia won easily.
-Tyson Fury might have had the KO of the year in front of 92,000 people at Wembley Stadium.
-Shakur Stevenson vaulted himself into my P4P top ten with a dominant showing over the excellent Oscar Valdez to unify belts at Super Featherweight. On the undercard, Keshawn Davis looked very, very impressive moving to 5-0. Big things are coming for this young American.
May isn’t stacked with bangers but there are a couple shows worth your attention.
Saturday May 7th (DAZN PPV) P4P Champion Canelo Alverez continues his reign of terror over multiple weight classes as he attempts to add a light heavyweight belt to his collection against undefeated Dmitry Bivol. Canelo has been making it look soooo easy, it’s easy to forget he is fighting at a weight FIFTEEN POUNDS heavier than when he defeated GGG a few years back. The man is absolutely fearless trying to find the best fight he can, no matter what the weight class. If Saul wins here it’s on to the trilogy match vs GGG in September.
Saturday May 14th (Showtime) A rematch of Jermell Charlo and Brian Castano to unify belts at junior middleweight. The last time these two tangled it ended in an action packed draw. Many think Castano deserved the nod the first time and will be looking to be even more aggressive against that talented and dangerous Charlo this time around. DO NOT MISS THIS FIGHT!
Also on the same card is rising star Jaron Ennis who is currently ranked right behind Terrence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr who are rumored to finally be mixing it up this fall.
I’ll mention the Gevonta Davis vs Rolando Romero fight on Saturday May28th because the Mayweather promoted fighter has a huge following and an undefeated record. However, no way I’m forking over PPV money to watch him make quick work of another tomato can. Davis worked out of the same gym featured on the epic TV show The Wire and could be one of the best fighters on the planet. We don’t know because he has been taking the easy path protecting that 0 on the advice of Floyd Money. Rumor has it that Gevonta is planning on finding new management with hopes of taking on some top talent (Ryan Garcia, Devin Hamey, Loma) to build his legacy before he turns 29 in the near future. I’ll save my money for when that day arrives.
June is shaping up to be an AMAZING month for fight fans so I will be back then.
My Updated Pound For Pound Rankings
1) Canelo Alverez, 2) Tyson Fury 3) Errol Spence Jr. 4) Terence Crawford 5) Naoya Inoue 6) Nonito Donaire 7)O. Usyk 8) Loma 9) Teofimo Lopez 10) Shakur Stevenson
If you would like to cover boxing for Pencilstorm, please send an email to pencilstormstory@gmail.com. In the meantime, I’ll keep holding it down myself. It’s been a while since Sweet Science was worth writing about but the month of April is shaping up to be a good one. I’ll give you a quick overview of what’s what, but for real coverage check out the podcast Boxing with Chris Mannix (every Friday) and follow @danrafael1 on twitter and subscribe to his newsletter on substack.
Colin Gawel plays rock n roll and wrote this at Colin’s Coffee.