Almost a dozen years ago, Shawn Porter was the co-main event fighter on a Los Angeles Sports Arena card that included these former, current and future world champions: Errol Spence Jr., Joseph Diaz Jr., Deontay Wilder, Leo Santa Cruz and Amir Khan.
He knows what a deep card looks like.
And so the loaded Aug. 3 roster coming to the six-year-old LAFC BMO Stadium that was constructed over the razed grounds of the hallowed Sports Arena served as inspiration Thursday for Porter and the cast of analysts on ProBox TV’s “Deep Waters” to consider a dream scenario.
If money was no object – as seems to be with Saudi Arabia’s boxing benefactor Turki Alalshikh, chairman of the kingdom’s general entertainment authority – what card would each analyst create.
Porter said his main event would be the long-denied meeting of former heavyweight champions Anthony Joshua versus Deontay Wilder.
His co-main would be the most-longed-for fight of the moment: undisputed super-middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez versus unbeaten former champion David Benavidez.
The other bouts would be Aug. 3 main-event fighter Terence Crawford meeting another junior-middleweight champion, the unified (WBC-WBO) Sebastian Fundora, and what Porter calls “the best stylistic fight in the world” pitting unbeaten lightweight champions Shakur Stevenson and Gervonta “Tank” Davis.
Hearing that, fellow analyst and former welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi replied rapidly.
“That’s your opener?” Malignaggi asked of Davis-Stevenson. “You’re out of your mind. You want to know why?The other three are all mismatches.
“Crawford smashes Fundora. Joshua smashes Wilder because Wilder’s shot. And Benavidez smashes Canelo. That’s not a competitive fight. Shakur-Gervonta is the only competitive fight on that card!”
Malignaggi proposed a dream card without names, suggesting someone get the best eight fighters in a given weight class and make it like a college-football playoff: No. 8 versus No. 1, No. 7 versus No. 2 and so on.
“You’d clean out every weight class. Look at what college football does. You need that in boxing. In boxing [now], guys go in parallel lines for years. This [idea] forces the guys to get in the ring.”
Fellow “Deep Waters” analyst and former 140-pound champion Chris Algieri jabbed Malignaggi for not reading the question, and Algieri proceeded to list his dream card.
Main event: Tyson Fury versus Anthony Joshua.
“I still want to see that fight. We’ve been talking about it for so long and it would be competitive. [Training] with Ben Davison has really elevated Joshua’s game and Tyson has looked vulnerable lately. It brings it closer.”
Algieri agreed he wants to see Stevenson-Davis, and said he wants unbeaten welterweight champion Jaron “Boots” Ennis to meet either of these Aug. 3 fighters: Vergil Ortiz or Crawford.
He said Ennis-Crawford would be “that classic changing-of-the-guard fight, or it could be that grizzled veteran getting one more win. Or Jaron takes out the old lion and becomes the star of the sport. We used to always pass the torch in this sport.”
One of Algieri’s final two bouts is happening in late June – Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez versus Juan Francisco Estrada – and he believes the other will occur, undisputed super-bantamweight champion Naoya Inoue versus former champion Brandon Figueroa.