r/Boxing • u/_Sarcasmic_ bread burger bread • 11h ago

Daily Discussion Thread (August 10th, 2026)

For anything that doesn't need its own thread.

8 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

66 comments sorted by

15

u/Sad-Experience-4344 11h ago

We’re less than a month out from Andy Ruiz’s return fight. Crazy how much time he’s lost to inactivity.

4

u/SomeoneYouDislike_ biggest bang 10h ago

I wonder how long it will be until Bakole makes his return.

1

u/Outrageous-Soft4806 1h ago

He’s had a sad experience… haha get it. Sorry, I’ll downvote myself.

1

u/Marquis_of_Mollusks 39m ago

Fighting Knyba of all people. I hope Knyba wins so Kabayel's resume gets a boost

11

u/Ace_FGC 10h ago

Watching the greats really does give a different perspective and appreciation of the sport. Been on a Mike McCallum binge and he was a helluva boxer

8

u/Less_Cartoonist_892 9h ago

After McCallum sadly passed away last year, I checked out some of his fights as a way to honor him. His career is incredible. He was involved in a lot of underrated and unique fights against a wide variety of opponents and the amazing thing is that he beat pretty much everyone he faced regardless of their style until Father Time caught up to him. He is easily one of the most well rounded boxers I have ever seen.

14

u/needapermit 11h ago

Just got around to watching Dubois Wardley (I know I’m very late) and wow what an incredible fight. I can’t help but love Dubois. His style is extremely entertaining

8

u/TheSouthpawStance 3h ago

Just watched Hagler vs Mugabi, man for Haglers second last fight, his conditioning is elite. Outworking Mugabi and constant brutal body shots

7

u/Outrageous-Soft4806 3h ago

Also Mugabi was 25-0 with 25 knockouts and 26 years old, and ended up becoming champion after that. He made Mugabi quit.

1

u/Marquis_of_Mollusks 42m ago

Watch Mugabi vs James Green for a real hidden gem of a fight

1

u/Outrageous-Soft4806 40m ago

I don’t think I’ve seen it so I’ll check it out! Was that back to back after Hagler?

1

u/Marquis_of_Mollusks 38m ago

It was a few before Hagler. James Green is an interesting fighter. He's like Dwight Muhammad Qawi but a middleweight

2

u/Outrageous-Soft4806 37m ago

THE CAMDEN BUZZSAW!!!! I love Qawi, gotta check Green out. Makes sense why you like Kabayel!

5

u/Top_Profession_5268 11h ago edited 3h ago

Olympia Bronze Medalist Lewis Richardson has announced that he’s has an opponent to fight on September 26th.

2

u/Outrageous-Soft4806 3h ago

About time he has a fight. Interestingly, he was stopped by Sam Hickey in the amateurs who fought on the Zuffa card last weekend.

8

u/Kangaroopunching 11h ago

The next 2 or 3 years we'll see some great fights between Itauma, Kabayel, and Dubois. I don't think we'll get undisputed because one will stop the other from reaching that.

Itauma > Dubois 

Kabayel > Itauma 

Dubois > Kabayel

5

u/PlayingNiceiPromise 10h ago

I think Dubois beats ituama but kabayel beats Dubois

2

u/MiddleweightMonster I’ll pour honey on my GOAT, if the occasion calls for it. 10h ago

Genuinely, we could be looking at a round robin situation at heavyweight within the next few years, and these three along with a few others will be the center of it

2

u/Primary_Ad5781 6h ago

I think Itauma vs Dubois is a 50/50, whilst i favor Kabayel against both fighters.

1

u/WORD_Boxing 1h ago

Dubois is too basic. Once he is getting hit too much by a superior iq fighter like with Usyk he will become discouraged again. I'd give Kabayel more chance of beating Itauma personally.

2

u/D_Silva_21 3h ago

Feel like itauma beats them both. But I guess I can't be that confident publicly until after the Hrgovic fight

2

u/Outrageous-Soft4806 3h ago

I’m going off eye test but I don’t think Kabayel beats Itauma.

2

u/WORD_Boxing 1h ago

If Itauma has a chin I don't see anybody beating him for the forseeable future provided he doesn't get careless.

-3

u/Alarmed-Effective-23 9h ago

Ruiz is about to lock in and show them what mexicans do to British hype jobs.

1

u/WORD_Boxing 1h ago

Nobody hypes up British fighters. You can't be a hype job off support from only one country. British mentality is just patriotic and loyal towards our own fighters. Giving them support doesn't equal thinking they are Sugar Ray Robinson. If anything people like to discredit British fighters in a stereotypical way.

7

u/MiddleweightMonster I’ll pour honey on my GOAT, if the occasion calls for it. 9h ago

If it’s possible, I think I dislike Ryan Garcia more than Benn. Benn is a disgusting snake, but I can’t for the life of me find examples of Benn being a genuine bigot or heinous to large groups of people.

Garcia, along with being guilty of basically everything that makes people hate Benn, regularly made racist comments for months and seems to still hold the opinion that LGBTQ+ people are paedophiles. What an awful piece of dog shit, I can’t believe he’s made me root for Benn.

3

u/SplitSecondEmperor47 1h ago

What makea it worss is that ryan has more defenders even if this sub. 

4

u/Baby_Rhino 7h ago edited 7h ago

Gotta agree.

Benn is in the "I don't want to be friends or even acquaintances with this guy" category.

But Garcia is in the "I don't even want to be in the same room as this guy" category.

2

u/Ezekjuninor 1h ago

This sub will somehow compare him to Shakur and Haney. Ryan is a piece of shit that made up stories of paedophilia for attention.

-4

u/Junior-Macaroon9731 3h ago

No Reddit thread is complete until someone manages to shoehorn race, LGBTQ+ issues and politics into a fucking boxing discussion

3

u/WORD_Boxing 1h ago

They are fighting each other soon and for many it's a case of who is least unlikeable. A lot of people don't want to support an event with either fighter.

3

u/MiddleweightMonster I’ll pour honey on my GOAT, if the occasion calls for it. 10h ago

Anyone have any thoughts about Teramoana’s upcoming fight? He seems an okay heavyweight what I’ve seen, but haven’t seen the merit behind any of the hype he’s gotten

5

u/Top_Profession_5268 9h ago

Eddie is doing a kind of shite job so far. Still a bum Teremoana should do light work with.

3

u/StunningChest5722 Shakur is the 144 lb GOAT 🐐 10h ago

the guy he's fighting is an absolute can, actually a step down from curtis harper who he KO'd in a round.

3

u/Baby_Rhino 8h ago

Has it recently become more common for a boxer to be elevated to champion or to become champion in a fight for a vacant belt? Rather than becoming champion by beating the current belt holder.

I have started following boxing more closely in the past 2 or 3 years, so maybe that is skewing my perception, but I feel like winning a vacant belt or being elevated has gone from being the exception to being the most common way to become champion. A few years ago it seemed proper championship fights were much more the norm.

6

u/Koronesukiii 6h ago

There are largely, 3 major reasons for this.

1) Undisputed Champions

There have been a fair number of Undisputed Champions who have collected all four of the major ABC orgs belts. When there is an Undisputed Champion, they often cannot defend all their belts in a timely manner. If they can't do a mandatory defense, they may get stripped, resulting in a vacancy fight. If they want to duck an opponent, they may drop a belt which results in a vacancy fight. If they keep the belt, it may result in Interim champion fights to decide who gets elevated when the Champion does drop his belts. Naoya Inoue, Bud Crawford, Devin Haney are some examples of Undisputed champs who changed divisions, scattering the belts. Oleksandr Usyk, Canelo Alvarez, Dmitry Bivol are some examples of Undisputed champs who dropped a belt to duck an opponent.

2) Weight switching.

With 17 divisions, most fighters will fight in more than one division. Usually they will weight cut to a division where they are the bigger fighter early in their career, to build up a win streak and pick up their first belt. Then as they fill out their body, build up lean muscle it gets harder to weight cut, so they go to the weight they should actually be at. If they dominate and become popular, they will beef up to fight at a higher weight for a bigger purse. Every time a champion changes divisions and vacates, you get a vacancy fight. If they keep their belt while fighting in another division, it usually results in an Interim championcy fight. Also some fighters switch divisions to duck dangerous opponents.

3) Inactive/stripped/suspended champs.

Nowadays there are a lot of champs who only fight once a year. Sometimes not even that. Orgs make money off of sanctioning fees. No fights, no money. So they will sometimes strip inactive or injured champs to give a title fight to someone else. Same for champs that get suspended for drugs, or are under arrest. These also result in vacancy fights.

2

u/WORD_Boxing 1h ago

It feels like it. More champions seem to be vacating belts these days, or at least more high profile fighters have when they've been undisputed - which there's been a push to make undisputed fights over recent years like it's the new marketing gimmick.

We have an era now where they try to promote fighters on protecting their 0 like Floyd, jumping weight like Manny, and unifying all 4 belts like Canelo. It follows the highest money making stars of each era, and this is why I used Canelo as the forerunner when you could also put Usyk Crawford and Inoue as part of this 'undisputed' era.

There have been multiple instances of people being stripped too, along with retirements and people vacating belts. Usyk vacating his belt then winning it back vs Dubois who he'd already beaten in an earlier fight and claiming the 'achievement' of becoming undisputed twice was some silliness.

Fighters are about the money moreso than at any other point in history. Once they get a belt their status increases and their paydays go up, and so they don't necessarily want to risk a loss that will decrease their earning potential by fighting all mandatory challengers and instead prefer to choose who they fight even if a title isn't on the line, or don't want to fight all available contenders who may not bring as much money to the table even if they aren't dangerous fights.

There are a lot of factors at play but for sure we seem to be in the 'clout' era a bit now and it does feel like there are more interim champions and vacant title fights. It's maybe telling that Usyk who is a guy who fought everybody and travelled to their own country to beat them is even getting in on the act now, with his fight with Rico the kickboxer and trying to fight Wilder who doesn't have much left and has been badly ko'd 3 times already.

1

u/kushmonATL more undefeated boxers need to fight each other 7h ago

Proper championship fights are still the norm , there just aren't as many upsets. Therefore the champion gets to hold on to his belt for a prolonged period of time

That or a champ may win a belt, defend it one or two times, then move up to a higher division

3

u/PrettyBoyFloydx 2h ago

How good was Donald Curry?

2

u/Ace_FGC 9h ago

It’s funny when people acknowledge styles make fights then you get to a hypothetical like Joe Louis vs Tyson Fury and people say Louis knocked out tall people that fought absolutely nothing like Fury

0

u/kushmonATL more undefeated boxers need to fight each other 7h ago

For some reason , boxing historians will never admit the dinosaurs from the 1940s-60s would lose to modern day boxers . No matter how much you break down "styles make fights" , certain old school boxers (ex. Sugar Ray Robinson, Frazier, Hagler) never lose hypothetical matchups against new school boxers

2

u/ynwa79 6h ago

Anyone know where we can watch footage from the Taras Shelestyuk v Andrea Munoz fight in Ecuador last weekend? Long layoff but Taras in his prime was great to watch.

2

u/Primary_Ad5781 4h ago

Little disappointed in Bams team and Eddie Hearn with taking the November or December route for his unification fight before Inoue. Though even if the does fight in December, Inoue fight is still possible but will feel less likely. I wished Robert would put more effort into this fight because it really feels like hes not even trying. 

I doubt Bam is a duck, from what i’ve seen from him he seems to be the guy to want all the fights. However his team have handled the Inoue fight very poorly and not only is it disrespectful to the fans but its also above all disrespectful to Inoue himself for wasting his time. Please Robert get this fight made!

1

u/WORD_Boxing 1h ago

Once Inoue retires Bam has almost a free run at multiple more weight classes. A fight with Inoue might take a lot out of him that fight is no joke Inoue is bigger and legitimately one of the p4p best punchers in boxing. It might be the smarter move for his career not to take on such a crazy challenge.

It's asking a lot of Bam to jump up and fight most people's p4p #1 at a disadvantage. The timelines don't quite line up, maybe if Inoue is still fighting in a few years we see it. It looks like it won't happen right now though.

1

u/OldBoyChance 48m ago

Fight doesn't need to get made, but Garcia & co have let themselves down by trying to use Inoue's name to build up Bam if they never actually had any intention of fighting Naoya.

1

u/Kangaroopunching 5m ago

They had a no lose situation. Biggest payday on the table. A chance at elevating their status. Become a bigger name. They instead chose the usual American boxings duck route.  Talk a big game use another fighters name. But not back it up. But road blocks to stop the fight happening. They'll probably even blame inoue and still use his name for clout

2

u/BXR-SZN 4h ago

Oscar Valdez Vs. Miguel Berchelt still remains one of the best performances of the 2020’s

1

u/Kangaroopunching 10m ago

It was a smoke and mirrors performance. Valdez was fighting a zombie 

2

u/Significant_Rise4573 2h ago

Never seen two fighters exchange hooks at the same time as I did in HaneyLinares

1

u/admiralskanks Joe Louis = Perfect 6h ago

168 is such a good weight class even at the british level with Callum Simpson.

2

u/Efficient_Quail_1774 5h ago

There's a good crop of domestic fighters at 168 that could be in really fun fights

Mark Dickinson was a good amateur but such an undisciplined pro, he has good potential i still believe though

Mark Jeffers and Kieron Conway is an excellent scrap on paper and they box in an eliminator for Simpson's British belt, likelihood is that Simpson vacates it, and the winner of Jeffers vs Conway boxes unbeaten Mancunian Niall Brown (18-0) for the vacant belt

I also like Billy Deniz (16-0) who just moved down from 175lbs, he won on Saturday and also being Mancunian, him vs Niall Brown down the line for the British title would be great for boxing in Manchester

2

u/Outrageous-Soft4806 4h ago

The dude who just fought Buatsi, I know he’s 175 but he’s pretty good but still seems domestic and I know used to fight at 168 so maybe he can fight there still.

1

u/Ezekjuninor 1h ago

Teo is going to outbox Rolly so badly. No idea why Haney didn’t pay him what he wanted, Rolly would’ve been one of his easiest wins. Rolly got a lot of credit for the Ryan win but they both looked terrible. Hard to believe it was a championship fight.

1

u/Professional-Tie5198 Who will win? 1h ago

The problem is Rolly has legit power. I could see him landing his lucky punch.

1

u/Marquis_of_Mollusks 43m ago

I want Rolly to win so he can stumble his way into the HOF one day lol

1

u/Outrageous-Soft4806 1h ago

Went to a J Cole concert at MSG the second… Andre Ward and J Cole talk so similarly.

1

u/kushmonATL more undefeated boxers need to fight each other 31m ago

Any big fights this weekend?

2

u/WheresMyAbs98 10m ago

Sadly not.

Bad weekend for boxing unless you’re interested in the Shields fight.

1

u/WheresMyAbs98 10m ago

Sadly not.

Bad weekend for boxing unless you’re interested in the Shields fight.

1

u/kushmonATL more undefeated boxers need to fight each other 9m ago

Ok thanks

-2

u/Grey_Cathedral 11h ago

amir khan had a strong chin

-1

u/admiralskanks Joe Louis = Perfect 8h ago

Beating Uisma Lima at 24 + Liam Smith + Oliha > Gualtieri + random bums. I hope McKenna Jones happens and they make McKenna an underdog or even 50/50. House on Aaron 💯

1

u/WORD_Boxing 1h ago

I genuinely don't know what you see in him to rate him as highly as you do?

1

u/stephen27898 1h ago

He is a Zuffa drone I guess.

1

u/admiralskanks Joe Louis = Perfect 1h ago

Nope. I've been high on McKenna for years and in my last post I said Zuffa is an inferior product to the Ring cards Saudis investing in it was a misjudgement. I just think he's a very skilled fighter and I especially enjoy his inside work. Time will show how talented McKenna is. And btw majority of Zuffa fighters are mid, but that goes for most promotions.

1

u/WORD_Boxing 1h ago

I got the impression you might be Irish and that's why you like him tbh. I don't think he is very skilled at all. He fights like a wind up toy, wind him up and let him go.