It took Anthony Dirrell less than five months to get back to his winning ways. “The Dog”, dismantled Marco Antonio Rubio over ten rounds, winning every round on all three judges’ scorecards. Dirrell was upset by Badou Jack back in April and was itching to get back into the ring.
While it is hard not to root for Dirrell, his battle with cancer has been such an inspirational story; it is even harder to ignore the fact that Marco Antonio Rubio is treading dangerous waters. I do not want to say “El Venneo” has reached Alfredo Evangelista status (human punching bag), but he is getting close to that point. Rubio also saw action in April, getting blown away by Gennady Golovkin in two rounds. Following up that fight with a performance where he ate more leather than George Foreman does hamburgers is cause for alarm.
The PBC has to be on alert as well. It cannot continue to package mismatches as main events, as they appear to have a string of those kinds of fights coming up, and expect to gain traction. While The PBC gave us a crackling co-feature between top Bantamweights Jamie McDonnell & Tomoki Kameda, the fight ended with a decision that the average viewer perceived to be erroneous.
While the PBC cannot, and should not, take blame for the judges incompetence, this is the kind of thing that draws folks away from the sport; especially in America. Follow that up with a gross mismatch and you have not helped the cause at all.
None of this is a concern for Anthony Dirrell. As far as he is concerned he did his job. From his point of view he had a guy coming forward all day despite what was being thrown at him, and the guy kept trying to take his head off; this was no was mismatch as far as The Dog was concerned and would laugh at anyone who said otherwise.
When Dirrell lost to Badou Jack he relinquished his WBC Super Middleweight Title. Jack takes on George Groves September 12th in defense of that title. Dirrell should be in line to fight the winner of that fight; which could take place in February/March. While these are not match ups that would force the average fan to miss their Saturday night with the Mrs., they are not without interest in a division that has lagged for a while.
Since Andre Ward cleaned out the 168 pound division, and subsequently did a Houdini act, the 168 pound division has been as interesting as an infomercial. I do not want to say potential fights like the Jack versus Dirrell rematch, then Ward after that, add spice to the division, but it does make it digestible. Although Andre Ward is not associated with The PBC at this time. Let us worry about that later.
For now, The PBC has to keep the Marco Antonio Rubio’s of the world out of their main events. To delve even further, how about taking some interest in Rubio’s health and not allow him to fight anymore? I know it is a hard thing sometimes to take a man’s profession away from him, but, when health is involved, often the lunatics running the asylum often leads to circumstances beyond chaos. Although when it comes to the sweet science some may say we are dealing with all lunatics.