Featherweight Havoc
The featherweight division has always held significant influence. Its icons inhabit the sport’s annals, which are bestrewn with barbaric battles of yesteryear.
The likes of Willie Pep and Sandy Saddler represented the early 20th century, an era closed out by legends such as the one and only Naseem Hamed.
Juan Manuel Marquez and Vasyl Lomachenko, it’s fair to say, are among the modern greats.
History will always be kind to these fighters, simply because they chose to write history how it should be written.
Of course, no two fighters or eras are the same. Comparison is the thief of joy in that if you’re always comparing, you’ll never be satisfied.
The current crop at 126lbs may not match up, but there is a real mixture of characters and excitement. Many of those characters have already squared off.
Now, however, the division is at a standpoint.
Is there a collaborative goal in sight to crown the division’s first undisputed champion of the four-belt era?
One of the champions - and potentially the most feared - Luis Alberto Lopez, makes defence number two of his IBF title tomorrow against two-time world title challenger Joet Gonzalez.
Gonzalez will be hoping it’s third time lucky, after defeats to Shakur Stevenson and Emmanuel Navarette in his previous attempts.
But Lopez’s snatching of the world title in Leeds last December, followed by his Belfast beatdown of Michael Conlan, has given him an aura of intimidation. He is the king in waiting.
However, the Top Rank fighter may have wandering eyes, with Naoya Inoue looking a financially viable yet frighteningly alarming option.
That could be bad news for WBO champion Robiesy Ramirez, who would have been eyeing an easy unification with Lopez, despite the latter’s claims it is a fight that ‘doesn’t sell’.
As usual, the WBC situation is nice and uncomplicated. ‘Full’ champion Rey Vargas hasn’t defended his belt in 14 months, having most recently stepped up to super-featherweight to challenge O’Shaquie Foster for his green and gold belt.
Even that was seven months ago, in which time the WBC have crowned an ‘interim’ champion in Brandon Figueroa, who himself overcame Mark Magsayo in March.
Vargas watched that fight from ringside and considering both he and Figueroa work with Al Haymon under the PBC banner, it could well be a fight we see next.
And then we have the WBA belt, which Leigh Wood has given a home to for the last two years.
Granted, the belt did leave on loan for three months, but a splendid boxing performance in Manchester put right that wrong.
Now, he and Josh Warrington will come together for a fight that has all the ingredients of a classic.
It is that WBA title that Warrington was chasing back when he re-signed with Matchroom in 2020 - a serious of unfortunate events led to him ending the year beaten and beltless.
Wood versus Warrington is a fight that, barring this now inevitable jinx, cannot disappoint.
It wouldn’t surprise me if we are sitting here next summer ahead of the trilogy stadium fight between the pair.
Whatever happens, it is a fight, and a division, not to take your eye off.
Oscar Bevis
