STEVE’S SOAPBOX
who was reared by the HBO/Showtime system, which gradually built and elevated boxers who were good enough to reach the financial stratosphere. This was when there was more activity for fighters to build their brands and expand their fan bases (Alvarez will end his career with right around 70 bouts) and there wasn’t full-blown piracy of pay-per-view. Regardless, the business always evolves and adapts with the times. And it will always need boxers who are talented, compelling and who – crucially – resonate with the public. Who are the guys who possess, as Larry Merchant has said in the past, “the right stuff”? I have three guys in mind who fit these criteria. They are not only highly accomplished inside the ring; they bring entertaining styles to the dance and thus far don’t give any real signs of being cringeworthy divas. Now, that could change in a few years, but for now, they are easy guys to hitch your wagon to. Jaron Ennis “Boots” is 29, but he really just arrived on the “elite boxer” scene. Although he became a unified Ring Magazine welterweight champion in April 2025, that accomplishment came after Crawford and Errol Spence had vacated the 147-pound division. Ennis (36-0, 32 KOs) waited patiently for his chance at stardom as he took a back seat to bigger names in the sport. And he seized that opportunity in late June when he challenged Xander Zayas, who came into their showdown with the WBA and WBO 154-pound belts around his waist. In what was an entertaining affair, Ennis started fast, scored a knockdown in the first and overcame getting rocked in the third to take back control and score a seventh- round stoppage. Just like that, he is now a two-division unified champion. But his junior middleweight achievement is different, given that this was on a much bigger stage than his
welterweight triumphs. It just felt like a star-making performance. The shootout with Zayas was Ennis in a nutshell: fan- friendly, risky, dangerous and ultimately effective. For whatever flaws he might have, you are mesmerized by the way he switch-hits and stays in the pocket with the ability to punch with both hands. He is boxing’s version of Evel Knievel – a daredevil. And he has proven to be a legitimate ticket-seller on the East Coast, both in his hometown of Philadelphia, nearby Atlantic City and the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where the Zayas fight drew a sizable audience. He now has his sights set on adding another belt to his collection by facing reigning IBF beltholder Josh Kelly in his next outing. Jesse Rodriguez “Bam” is already one of the most highly decorated boxers in the sport. He is currently No. 4 in Ring Magazine’s pound-for-pound rankings, and for good reason. Rodriguez (24-0, 17 KOs) has won major world titles from flyweight to bantamweight. He was a unified titleholder at flyweight and a unified Ring Magazine champ at junior bantamweight. In his last outing in mid-June, he moved up to bantamweight and dispatched Antonio Vargas in six to win the WBA title. The only thing that really holds Rodriguez back is size. Unfortunately for him, there has always been a bit of a glass ceiling in America for fighters below featherweight. But the 26-year- old native of San Antonio, Texas, has been able to earn the respect of hardcore fans with a series of technically brilliant performances that usually end in knockouts. His last six bouts have been stoppages of Sunny Edwards, Juan Francisco Estrada, Pedro Guevara, Phumelela Cafu, Fernando Martinez and Vargas – all but Guevara held world titles when they faced Rodriguez. There isn’t a more impressive streak in the sport. There is precision and beauty to what
he does. Rodriguez combines exquisite pivots and shifts to create openings for himself offensively and delivers punches with accuracy and power. He is must-see television for aficionados of the sport. There has been talk of Rodriguez further unifying the bantamweight class in the late fall, and then a possible showdown with Naoya Inoue in 2027. Regardless of where Bam challenges The Monster, it would be a significant matchup, one that would draw international interest. Like Ennis, Rodriguez has been able to sell tickets in his home state of Texas and places like Glendale, Arizona, which has a large Mexican-American population. Abdullah Mason Mason (21-0, 18 KOs) is by far the youngest of the three at age 22. From the very moment he signed with Top Rank in 2020, the rangy southpaw had the look of a future champ. After several years going through TR’s tried- and-tested developmental system, he was put into position to face Sam Noakes in November 2025 for the vacant WBO lightweight title. In what was a hard-fought affair in Saudi Arabia, Mason gutted out a tough 12-round decision to win his first world title. Then, on the Fourth of July, he took on the difficult Albert Bell (a late replacement for Joe Cordina) in what was a homecoming bout at the Wolstein Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Early on, the tall and angular Bell boxed effectively. It looked like Mason’s reign would be short-lived. But by the late rounds, Mason closed the gap with intelligent pressure and wore Bell down with fast, powerful punches. In the final round, Mason finished him off. It was a stirring effort. In his initial performance in Cleveland, Mason drew around 10,000 patrons, and his bout was the initial telecast of the TNT cable network’s “The Fight” series, meaning he played to a much larger audience than usual. This young man seized the moment on a big stage.
THE DYNAMIC TRIO By Steve Kim
generation of pro boxers. I don’t think social media has done any favors for some of these boxers (Ryan Garcia excluded), but you could probably make that statement for society as a whole. Regardless, where have the likes of Mike McCallum gone? With Terence Crawford retired and Canelo Alvarez heading into the sunset of his Hall of Fame career, you wonder who the next generation of stars are in North America. And can another even be developed in today’s marketplace? You could argue that the likes of Haney, Stevenson, Garcia and “Tank” (should he actually return to the ring) are the marquee names. They are all in their physical primes and have been involved in major events. But they are really no longer up-and- coming boxers. They have been firmly established for at least a few years running. But the sport of boxing is like a conveyor belt, where the next group of fighters is always arriving to disrupt the hierarchy. The truth of the matter is that there may never be another Alvarez, who I have described in the past as the last true pay-per-view franchise in the United States. He is the final fighter
A s I penned this in early October, Shakur Stevenson, Devin Haney and Gervonta Davis were engaging in a menage-a-tweets with one another, threatening to send each other fight offers and demanding that these theoretical offers be accepted. They may or may not fight one another by the end of the year – or even the beginning of 2027. In a nutshell, it’s the modern-day boxing business, which is a lot of posturing and financial leverage flexing on social media. But there really isn’t a lot of action inside the ring. In short:
It’s tiresome. I fully admit that I am now at the “get off my lawn!” stage of my career. I actually embrace being a full-blown cynic. Can you blame me at this point? I find this generation of boxers to be a bit annoying and – to be blunt – unlikable. They come off as petulant or entitled. Or both. Am I wrong for feeling this way? I’m not trying to tell you that the fighters I grew up watching in the 1980s and ’90s were perfect by any stretch. I always got the sense that they were flawed men like the rest of us and certainly more relatable to the public than this
14 RINGMAGAZINE.COM
RINGMAGAZINE.COM 15
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker