Boxing’s biggest February winners and losers: Bombshells, betrayals and billion-dollar threats

February may be the shortest month on the calendar, but just try telling that to the wider boxing world after the one that’s just passed.

Breaking news was a daily occurrence during the final fortnight of the month, rarely relating to anything that happened inside the sport’s squared circle. But where there are stories, there are also winners and losers — so let’s see who won and lost boxing’s month of February.

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WINNERS

Ryan Garcia

Ryan Garcia finally showed himself to be more Jekyll than Hyde in February, routing Mario Barrios in a career-best performance to claim his maiden world title.

The newly-crowned WBC welterweight champion was close to punch-perfect against the underwhelming Barrios, spring-boarding himself into talk of superfights in the second half of 2026.

It was an overdue coming out party of sorts for the 27-year-old. The maturity Garcia showed inside the ring is, hopefully, an indication that he is now ready to take this very unserious sport a lot more seriously before his talent ship sails into the night.

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The next step for “King Ry” will be dogged in politics — he’s potentially a free agent after running down his contract with Golden Boy, and with a green and gold title around his waist, his stock has never been higher.

Conor Benn

Getting paid $15 million to fight as a co-main event against Regis Prograis is winning in our eyes.

Sure, Conor Benn’s popularity may have taken a hit this February after leaving Matchroom Boxing for the Zuffa project, but prizefighting is called prizefighting for a reason, and with a 150-pound catchweight lined up against a faded 140-pound champion, Benn has just walked into one of the easiest paydays of his short career.

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It might all end in tears for “The Destroyer.” He’ll be acutely aware that he is being used as a pawn in boxing’s latest turf wars, but nevertheless, a pawn dressed in silk pajamas will help him sleep at night.

Just don’t tell the underpaid stars of the UFC…

Zuffa Boxing

Speaking of Conor Benn, Zuffa Boxing’s ability to lure the Briton away from his loyal Matchroom stable was a massive “f*** you” to the establishment in boxing, signaling war and a glimpse into what the future may look like.

Zuffa has, of course, grossly overpaid for the services of a welterweight who hasn’t ever won a meaningful fight at welterweight, but that’s not really the point in the eyes of Dana White, Turki Alalshikh, TKO, Sela and the rest of the cabal.

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They aren’t looking to take part in boxing, but to take over — and if they are successful in doing so, then the signing of Conor Benn will be looked back on retrospectively in a decade’s time as the Archduke Franz Ferdinand-esque catalyst.

Brandon Figueroa

“The Heartbreaker” broke the hearts of thousands of Scousers in Liverpool in February, toppling their featherweight king and taking the WBA title back across the pond to Weslaco, Texas.

Figueroa fought in his typically confusing, uncoachable, ugly but affective style, uncorking a brutal left hand in the final round of the argument to signal the beginning of the end for Ball’s reign as 126-pound champion.

Ball’s bravery saw him rise to his feet, but Figueroa closed the show in style as the Liverpudlian was left tangled in a heap between the ropes.

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It feels like Figueroa has been around a lifetime, but at just 29 years old, the new champ will be chomping at the bit for lucrative opportunities now that he has some hardware around his waist.

Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao

Nobody asked for it, but we are getting it.

MayPac2 was officially announced for Sept. 19 in February, signaling a sequel to 2015’s “Fight of the Century” unanimous victory for Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Netflix have decided to stump up the cash for this one, guaranteeing handsome paydays for the pair of quadragenarian career-rivals, but that figure is still expected to fall considerably short of their eye-watering $600 million sum from a decade and change ago.

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It’s also the first time that Mayweather will fight off of a pay-per-view platform since 2005, signaling a change in viewing habits and landscape in the world of boxing.

LOSERS

Eddie Hearn

After guiding Conor Benn through the entirety of his professional career and going to war for him throughout his infamous failed drugs tests, Eddie Hearn was stabbed in the front by Zuffa Boxing’s brand-new signing in February, signaling an end to their relationship as we know it.

Hearn has seen it all in boxing. But a betrayal on this scale may have even taken the Matchroom Boxing big cheese by surprise as he is left with a sudden 147-160-pound hole in his roster.

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It’ll be easy for Hearn to swallow the loss of Benn in the coming months, but the optics of the move are pretty damning. Alongside Anthony Joshua and Katie Taylor — both at the back end of their respective careers — Benn was one of the biggest and most marketable stars of Matchroom’s stable, and just like that, he was stolen in broad daylight.

So who’s next? If nothing else, it may have taught Hearn to lock up his valuables at night.

Nick Ball

Nick Ball’s bid to cement himself atop the featherweight division came undone against the formidable Brandon Figueroa, as the Liverpool man surrendered his WBA title in front of a stunned home crowd — along with any immediate hopes of tempting Naoya Inoue into a blockbuster showdown.

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To his credit, Ball approached the contest with greater restraint than in previous outings, trading some of his usual chaos for calculation. For long stretches, it appeared a sensible adjustment. But with only minutes left, Figueroa detonated a thunderous, fight-altering shot that turned the narrative on its head, wiping out Ball’s unbeaten record and sending his title ambitions up in smoke.

For a stretch in 2025, Ball stood as the lone reigning world champion on British soil, a reflection of the sharp downturn in fortunes experienced by many of the country’s other titleholders over the past few years.

The WBC

With Zuffa Boxing and the Saudis running roughshod over the boxing landscape in February, the door was left ajar for the alphabet sanctioning bodies to walk through it and try and claim some form of moral superiority within the sport.

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But instead, Mauricio Sulaiman managed to score a horrendous own goal after sanctioning Oleksandr Usyk vs. Rico Verhoeven for the WBC heavyweight world championship.

Their May 23 bout — coming to you live and direct from the Pyramids of Giza, of course — will be Verhoeven’s second appearance as a professional boxer, having previously bested Hungary’s Janos Finfera in a four-rounder back in — checks notes — 2014.

“Yeah, well, whatever. Usyk deserves this kind of easy payday after racking up all of his wins over the past few years,” is a popular opinion that’s currently in circulation.

Fine. But not for the WBC heavyweight championship of the world — sighs.

The Ring Magazine

By the end of February, boxing’s soap opera had found a new storyline.

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News broke that veteran British promoter Frank Warren and his Queensberry outfit were lining up what was described as a near-$1 billion lawsuit against Saudi-backed powerbrokers Sela and TKO.

At the heart of it all? Warren’s belief that existing agreements had been torn up when the two entities moved forward with Zuffa Boxing — a glossy new promotional vehicle that, according to Queensberry, left them stranded outside the velvet rope of future Saudi-backed super-shows.

The plot thickened when The Ring magazine waded in. Now operating under the ownership and relaunched stewardship of Turki Alalshikh — and therefore orbiting many of the same financial galaxies as the parties involved — the publication issued a social media statement addressing the dispute. It referenced the breakdown in partnerships, alluded to financial strain at Queensberry, and was even “Community Noted” on X due to misinformation.

It read as if it had come from the pen of Turki Alalshikh himself, inviting criticism from across the boxing landscape. The Ring was once the gold standard for journalism in boxing. Now? Seemingly just another mouthpiece for Saudi propaganda.

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Claressa Shields and Franchon Crews-Dezurn

Tensions between Claressa Shields and Franchon Crews-Dezurn spilled over at the official weigh-in of their undisputed heavyweight contest, where a routine faceoff quickly morphed into something far less orderly. Crews-Dezurn pressed her forehead into Shields’ in a show of defiance, Shields shoved back — and it all unravelled.

Both camps piled in. Security scrambled. Glenn Dezurn — Crews-Dezurn’s husband — shoved a guard amid the chaos, and in the melee that followed, Crews-Dezurn tumbled into a table and hit the deck awkwardly.

For a moment, the rematch itself hung in the balance as concerns swirled over a swollen knee and ankle. By the next day, Crews-Dezurn was cleared to lose a lopsided unanimous decision to the G.W.O.A.T, struggling to keep pace with the impressive Shields.

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I could clutch my pearls and claim that “we don’t want to see that” in reference to the pre-fight shenanigans, but the thing is, a lot of people do. As long as we stay on the edge, instead of falling off it, of course.