Light heavyweight has pieces. 

It also has, on paper, plenty of clash. It’s a division where many of the best have already faced each other.

What light heavyweight lacks is much momentum. 

COVID played a part but it’s a surprising turn when one considers where matters were at the end of 2019. Saul Alvarez stopped Sergey Kovalev late in the year to infuse his star power. The win came months after IBF titlist Artur Beterbiev (15-0, 15 KO) wrested the lineal crown and WBC belt from Oleksandr Gvozdyk in an anticipated unification clash that delivered on its promise. During the same year, excellent WBA titlist Dmitry Bivol (17-0, 11 KO) added two more wins to his ledger including a one side rout of Joe Smith (26-3, 21 KO) and former lineal titlist Jean Pascal (35-6-1, 20 KO), assumed well past it, stunned with upsets of Marcus Browne and Badou Jack. 

What’s happened since?

Alvarez went back down the scale, making clear his campaign will be at super middleweight. Smith picked up the most notable win of 2020 with a stoppage of former titlist Eleider Alvarez. And…

Well, that’s about it for notable results. 

Beterbiev has tried to get into the ring and been on the wrong side of luck. Bivol hasn’t been in the ring since October 2019 and has nothing firm scheduled. Pascal, now 38, has nothing on the docket either. Smith had a match with Maksim Vlasov (45-3, 26 KO) postponed but they will finally get to their hostilities next month. 

Pascal’s age isn’t particularly out of place. Light heavyweight isn’t the youngest field right now. Most of the key players are in their thirties, with a newly arrived 29-year old former super middleweight titlist Gilberto Ramirez soon to join them. Beterbiev is 36, Smith is 31, Bivol is 30. Outside Pascal, most are still considered prime but none are at ages with tremendous time to waste.  

If this group at light heavyweight is going to build toward something, they need to reestablish the foundation they appeared to be building quickly. It makes Beterbiev’s fight Saturday (ESPN, 3 PM EST) a great place to start. 

If most don’t give much chance of an upset to Beterbiev’s challenger, 30-year old Adam Deines (19-1-1, 10 KO), that’s okay. Deines chances are slim. What Beterbiev has a chance to do is remind everyone of what got the boxing world excited early in his career and again with the win over Gvozdyk. Beterbiev is a skilled wrecking ball who whacks people out.

It’s a desirable trait. 

In a perfect world, we’d be on the cusp of what is easily a match of the top two in the class. Beterbiev may have history’s title but Bivol has easily the best resume at the moment unless one counts a Kovalev who is only nominally a factor (and well past his prime). Bivol barely lost a round to Pascal and the same was true for Smith. When Bivol beat them, Isaac Chilimba and Sullivan Barrera were also quality wins. 

Beterbviev-Bivol is the fight at light heavyweight. 

If it doesn’t feel like there is a groundswell to see it, well, absence doesn’t always make the heart grow fonder. Sometimes, it just makes for a vacuum other fighters can fill and generate interest within. Beterbiev-Bivol probably isn’t an immediate destination anyways. Beterbiev’s defense this weekend feeds easily under the Top Rank/ESPN banner into Smith-Vlasov. By summer, that could be a three-belt unification clash. 

It’s a chance in just weeks to go from a weight class in neutral to a weight class with a destination. If Bivol can get back in the ring before the summer is out, by the fall everyone could remember why light heavyweight was starting to look like a lot of fun not that long ago. 

The fun can’t start until the fists start flying. Beterbiev can kick start the action before the sun goes down on those watching in the States this weekend.

Cliff’s Notes…

Whether we get Juan Francisco Estrada-Roman Gonzalez III or Estrada-Srisaket Sor Rungvisai III, we’re getting chapter eleven. Hopefully, Carlos Sucre isn’t anywhere near ringside without a ticket for either of them...Queen’s Gambit was a show with plenty of buzz that is actually better than the reviews. Fantastic stuff...Tyson Fury-Anthony Joshua used headlines to lowkey tell everyone nothing has really changed. Throw in there being no next announced for Deontay Wilder and the top three heavyweights in the world are basically in limbo. That sucks and wastes a lot of momentum prior to COVID...Will the Snyder Cut be good? There will surely take four hours to find out...For all the talk about the best fights in boxing, the easy answer for everyone should be Josh Taylor-Jose Ramirez because that’s actually happening. Conjecture isn’t a fight.         

Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, a member of the International Boxing Research Organization, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com