Majestic May

As the temperature hopefully heats up in the northern hemisphere, thankfully, at last, so does the action in worldwide rings.

Over the coming month three of The Ring magazine’s mythical pound-for-pound fighters in the world will box. For fans of the sport this is a potential feast.

First up, this Saturday on Mexican Cinco de Mayo weekend, boxing in Las Vegas, USA is a contest for the undisputed super-middleweight (12st/168 lbs) championship of the world. It pits The Ring’s #4 pound-for-pounder (P4P), multi-weight world champion and, future hall-of-famer, Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez against fellow undefeated Mexican Jaime Munguia.

At age 33 and entering the twilight of his career Alvarez (60-2-2, 39 KOs) is still a formidable fighter and it will be some achievement for the 27 year old Munguia (43-0, 34 KOs) to wrestle the titles from him. The challenger is a come-forward fighter who likes to mix it, but bar an immediate deterioration of Alvarez’ skills and metal, we expect, after a real humdinger of a fight, the experience and durability of Canelo to prevail.

Quickly following up on Monday (6^th) The Ring 2023 Fighter of the Year and four-weight world champion ‘The Monster’ Naoya Inoue defends his second undisputed title against Mexican Luis Nery. This match-up is also notable for selling out the Tokyo Dome for boxing for the first time since ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson v James ‘Buster’ Douglas in 1990. And we know what happened then !

The 31 year old Japanese, Inoue (26-0, 23 KOs), is a modern boxing phenomenon who transcends the sport in the Far East. To think he was recently questioned by Shawn Porter as to needing to fight in the US to achieve that transcendal status !

The fight is at junior-featherweight (122 pounds/8st, 8lbs).

Nery (35-1, 27 KOs) and aged 29 is up for the challenge and talking a good fight. His sole defeat was in May 2021 being counted out by a body shot and subsequently it’s hard to see him weathering Inoue’s assault and class. Again though, a shoot-out is expected.

The following weekend ( Sat 11^th) Ukrainian Vasiliy Lomachenko faces Greek-Australian George Kambosos for the vacant IBF lightweight (9st, 9lbs/135lbs) title in Perth, Australia.

Loma, a two-time Olympic champion and former undisputed professional lightweight world champion is, like Canelo, in the twilight of his career too. His record stands at 17-3, 11 KOs and he’s The Ring #1 at 135 lbs. The Aussie, Kambosos is as well a former undisputed champion at lightweight and is attempting to regain at least a splinter of his former titles, having suffered two defeats to American Devin Haney.

Then, on Saturday (18^th) from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia we have the ‘history’ fight for the Undisputed Heavyweight Championship of the World between WBC and ‘lineal’ champion Tyson Fury and multi-sanction body champion Oleksandr Usyk. This is genuinely the biggest fight in the sport and will cement the undisputed status for the first time this century. Lennox Lewis was the last person to boast this by finally defeating Evander Holyfield in 1999.

Fury will enter at 34-0-1 (24 KOs) and Usyk 21-0 (14 KOs). More news, updates and a prediction on this follow.

Finally, on Saturday (25^th) in Leeds, England the long awaited rematch takes place between Brits Josh Taylor and Jack Catterall. This is a classic England v Scotland encounter, with Taylor the passionate Scot. Both have good skills and a sole defeat. Taylor (19-1, 13 KOs) had a hotly disputed victory over Catterall (28-1, 13 KOs) in 2022 and subsequently lost his unified world titles to Teofimo Lopez. No titles at stake in the rematch but national pride and kudos are high. Taylor is The Ring #2 and Catterall #7.

The month of May is truly 31 days of career defining and monumental fistic contests to lick your lips to. Legacies will either be enhanced or come tumbling down if either Canelo, Inoue or Lomachenko lose heavily.

Although big losses are entirely unexpected, great fights await. Lets hope the month delivers, and enjoy.