“What is really needed to solve some of these ills is simplicity, and in 2018 the World Boxing Super Series provided it. While Jose Ramirez was being developed into an attraction, the men who could define him as a fighter, men like Regis Prograis and Josh Taylor, entered the junior welterweight version of the WBSS. While Gilberto Ramirez was in the doldrums of defenses, Callum Smith used the WBSS to unify titles with a career-defining knockout of George Groves. Super bantamweight too, began its own WBSS tournament, one that already belongs to Japanese concussionista Naoya Inoue, who has failed thus far in his earnest search for a chin or liver that can endure his power. Oleksandr Usyk, meanwhile, brought the first WBSS tournament to a close by traversing the globe to prove he is the best cruiserweight on it.”

Read The World Boxing Super Series: Hope for More of the Same on Hannibal Boxing.

“Saul Alvarez, 51-1-2 (35), had no such trouble with his Saturday night farce. In his first performance for subscription streaming service DAZN and his debut at Madison Square Garden, Alvarez butchered hapless Rocky Fielding. Fielding, selected for his thimbleful of the diluted alphabet title soup, for his inability to secure any greater portion than that, was dropped four times in three ridiculous rounds, confirming what everyone knew long before the opening bell: that he does not belong in a ring with Alvarez; nor Alvarez in a ring with him.”

Read When the Present Bores You: Canelo Alvarez and the Future (After Rocky Fielding) on Hannibal Boxing.

“You or someone you know believes Vasiliy Lomachenko is just that. Is he? The answer isn’t particularly important, in part because it is difficult to prove anyone’s claim to that title. And yet this mythical title provides much of the context for Lomachenko’s career; he will be measured by his worthiness of that crown so long as he seems fit to wear it. There is nothing odd about any of that, not in a sport without the clarifying conventions of a traditional schedule and playoff structure. But it does mean that Lomachenko is held to a more exacting standard, one that becomes more exacting the more he embraces it. And that is as it should be.”

Read Frightful Synergy: Vasiliy Lomachenko Defeats Jorge Pedraza on Hannibal Boxing.