By holding out for more, boxing keeps missing the moment

For a sport built on unpredictability, boxing sure does love trying to script the future.

Ryan Garcia vs. Devin Haney 2 and Caleb Plant vs. Jermall Charlo are fights that fans wanted to see. They’re matchups that should’ve been made when the chance was there to make them. But instead, we got four bouts across two cards in the month of May, none of which anybody had much desire to watch, with two promised pots of gold at the end of the rainbow that now may never come.

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Turki Alalshikh’s Ring Magazine even went to the trouble of hosting the Garcia-vs.-Rolando Romero and Haney-vs.-Jose Ramirez doubleheader at New York’s historic Times Square crossing in an effort to add intrigue to the show that the main two fights simply did not provide by themselves.

When Plant and Charlo shared a card at the Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas this past Saturday, it was free to watch on Amazon Prime Video — a widely accessible service. It was an investment from the event partners in building a future fight that they hoped would repay dividends from pay-per-view revenue.

Both cards had a clear narrative and a logical path forward. The aim was to maximize the potential of two huge all-American showdowns. But it all came crashing down when it was main event time — on both occasions. Romero and Armando Resendiz ripped up their scripts and pulled off shocking upsets over Garcia and Plant, respectively.

And now, instead of the two perfect build-ups the sport attempted to create, boxing has lost two big pay-per-view rivalries that its limited arsenal of major fights could not afford to lose.

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Of course, this isn’t a new problem. Boxing has long attempted the concept of two co-main events sharing a card, with the two big favorites planned to face each other afterward. And it’s gone wrong before as well, even in recent years.

In December 2023, Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder finally signed contracts to battle each other — a fight that was years in the making. All the pair had to do was get past Otto Wallin and Joseph Parker respectively, but Parker showed fans just how faded Wilder actually was and dominated their 12-round heavyweight contest.

The upset victory killed all interest in a Joshua-vs.-Wilder bout, which already was many years too late. Now, in June, Wilder will return to the ring against the little-known Tyrrell Herndon. He hopes to make a comeback to the world level and possibly rekindle any interest in a money-spinning Joshua showdown. But if it does eventually happen, the fight will be a shadow of what it once could’ve been when the pair owned all four of the heavyweight titles in the late 2010s. The promoters and broadcasters will almost certainly rely on the nostalgic element of the fight, knowing full well that the in-ring action won’t deliver what fans have been sold — as was the case when Netflix and Most Valuable Promotions advertised heavily edited 30-second clips of 58-year-old Mike Tyson on the pads before his fight with Jake Paul.

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The rivalry between Plant and Charlo dates back to July 2023 at the weigh-in for Terence Crawford vs. Errol Spence Jr., where Plant was filmed delivering an open-handed slap to Charlo’s face. Plant claimed that Charlo had disrespected his wife and grabbed him by the beard.

Plant vs. Charlo was perfectly set up to be a major attraction — a bad-blood battle between former world champions in a division home to the planned Saul “Canelo” Alvarez-vs.-Terence Crawford spectacle in September. And with Plant, 32, and Charlo, 35, the clock was already counting down on their windows in the sport.

But event organizers chose not to go straight into the big fight, perhaps viewing Charlo’s extended period out of the ring as less than ideal in building a blockbuster clash. They were both offered tune-up bouts instead.

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Charlo’s well-documented struggles outside of the ring and lingering inactivity mixed together perfectly for an upset. But surprisingly, it wasn’t Charlo who lost his warm-up bout — it was Plant. And maybe the warning signs were evident there, too. Plant faded late in fights with Alvarez and David Benavidez, and was hurt early by the unheralded Trevor McCumby in his most recent bout this past September.

Plant went into the Resendiz fight owning a rematch clause, so we could see a second meeting between the pair. Alternatively, Resendiz could replace Plant’s position in a Charlo fight. But whatever the next step, it won’t be the build-up and fight we could’ve had with Plant and Charlo.

In the case of Garcia and Haney, boxing lost out to marination it didn’t even need. When Garcia and Haney battled the first time around for the WBC super lightweight title in April 2024, the build-up was nothing short of insane, with Garcia documenting himself smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol in late-night live transmissions leading up to the bout.

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Serious questions arose about whether Garcia should’ve even been in the ring in the first place. He was more than three pounds overweight for the contest and seemingly chugged a beer bottle as he tipped the scales 24 hours before the fight at a ceremonial weigh-in. But Garcia — temporarily, at least— proved the doubters wrong. He scored three knockdowns of Haney in a big upset and provided the sport with another dramatic night.

A few days after the fight, news broke that Garcia failed a drug test for the banned substance ostarine and that his win over Haney would be turned into a no-contest. To add fuel to the fire, Haney initiated legal proceedings against Garcia for having performance-enhancing substances in his system in their fight.

The rivalry was already at a boiling point, and boxing should’ve struck while the iron was hot.

But greed took over. The powers that be thought that the fight could be a little bit bigger. And by holding out for a tiny bit more, boxing keeps missing the moment — and ends up with a lot less.