Contributor: Nolan Howell
What looked earlier to what could have been a premier weekend for the sweet science, at least on paper, began the week with a fizzle and ended with, well, a fizzle.
Deontay Wilder was set to defend the WBC World Heavyweight Championship against mandatory challenger and perennial heavyweight bridesmaid Alexander Povetkin this weekend. While the fight was more a sidestep than a step forward for Wilder and his attempt to revive interesting in heavyweight boxing in the United States, a fight with a Russian in a slow road to the winner of the Fury vs. Klitschko rematch gave ample opportunity to promote the Bronze Bomber.
However, it was bungled to the point of cancellation earlier this week as Povetkin tested positive for meldonium, a drug banned by WADA at the beginning of the year. Among the whirlwind of distrust WADA has built in combat sports and the questions surrounding the positive test, the fact that the fight was up in the air to Showtime and a potential American broadcast fell to the wayside. Povetkin’s people were playing hardball and it was looking like Wilder, who had been hotshotted from premium cable hometown fights to a major cable network fight in Brooklyn. The fight cancellation proved to be the cherry on top of a majorly mishandled opportunity to continue to build the best American heavyweight prospect in more than a decade and was the catalyst domino in a terrible weekend for boxing.
Heavyweights in the United Kingdom provided another sore spot on Saturday afternoon as David Haye and Shannon Briggs blasted through handpicked opponents in second and first round stoppages respectively to set up a fight 
against one another at the O2 Arena in London. The results were clear from the start, with Bad Left Hook calling for the referee to put a stop to the Haye “embarrassment” in the second round right before they did. We at Undercard Superstar pondered the comeback of Haye a few months ago in his return fight, but setting up a fight against a man who will just as close to 50 as he is 40 in December and has fought no opponents of consequence since his 2010 loss to Vitali Klitschko signifies what to expect from Haye in the future. It is arguably a way to shake off the retirement rust, but it would appear that Haye is going to feast on the cream of the crop in the never-was and has-been categories that are filled abundantly in the formerly premier weight class.
A final finger point of shame goes to the Showtime junior middleweight triple-header on Saturday night. Topped with a rematch that nobody asked for between Vanes Martirosyan and Erislandy Lara and with the Charlo twins opening, the card represented a well-intentioned promotional effort that really damaged the weight class. Firstly, the demonstration of competition at the upper echelon of the weight division proved that it is better spread out and not expended on one card. While the John Jacksons and Austin Trouts of the world are fine fighters to watch on your Friday Night Fight main events and opening up Saturday night premium cable or pay-per-view cards, passing them off as the best the weight class has to offer will not give viewers the best impression about the prestige of the weight class. In addition, tangling up three of the major titles in a thin division will leave a lot of legitimate challengers in limbo. This card proved that combat sports in general still have a lot to learn from their sports entertainment cousins in the art of card placement, especially with a Lara-Martirosyan stinker in the main event further sullied by a bogus low blow deduction.
What looked to be a decent boxing weekend came apart at the seams throughout the week. In a sport that seems rushed to put together the next Mayweather vs. Pacquiao-type superfight, it begs the question of why? With such lack of planning in the future, perhaps one or two more pay-per-view showcases for Canelo and GGG won’t be the worst thing while the sport plans ahead. With Terence Crawford making the jump to HBO pay-per-view in an event they expect to do sub-100,000 buys in order to break even, boxing shows that they need a little time to get off the ropes in a post-Mayweather and post-Pacquiao world.
-Nolan can be reached at [email protected] or periodically on Twitter under various handles.
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