Junior Lightweight: From Not To Red Hot
By Cliff Rold
Boxing fans have grown used to how quickly things can change from division to division. Particularly in this era of seventeen weights classes, a simple movement of a few key names three or four pounds north can reset a landscape.
It happened between 130 and 135 lbs. in the previous decade. Floyd Mayweather, Diego Corrales, Acelino Freitas, and Joel Casamayor made 130 of the places to be in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Those four joined with each other and Jose Luis Castillo to light 135 on fire seamlessly.
Beginning really in late 2014 and blossoming in 2015, we’re seeing something similar happen between 126 and 130 lbs. This Saturday, when former WBA 1267 lb. titlist Nicholas Walters (26-0, 21 KO) makes his official division debut against Jason Sosa (18-1-3, 14 KO), we may see the beginnings of an outright explosion.
USA Today’s Mike Coppinger reports that a deal is in place for the winner of Walters-Sosa to face longtime WBA 130 lb. kingpin Takashi Uchiyama (23-0-1, 19 KO) next year. It’s thrilling news for anyone who knows just how good Uchiyama has been. While never having unified, Uchiyama is the consensus choice for top fighter in the division after a quality reign that dates to January 2010.
Some may ask ‘if Uchiyama has been around this long, what makes the class hot now?’ The answer is that there is a difference between good fighters and a good class. There are always good fighters. There is not always a heavy supply of matches feeding into more matches. When ‘what’s next’ is nearly as intriguing as ‘what’s now,’ a division is on fire.
Walters-Uchiyama would be, on paper, as exciting a showdown between heavy-handed battlers as one could ask for in 2016. Walters isn’t the genesis of this renaissance though. He is the second critical name to rise from featherweight.
When longtime featherweight stalwart Orlando Salido (43-13-3, 30 KO) missed weight for his victory over Vasyl Lomachenko and lost his WBO belt on the scale, it opened the door for a rise in weight. Wars have followed. Salido alone has been involved in three straight.
His WBO 130 lb. title win over Terdsak Kokietgym in September 2014 was at worst many people’s runner-up choice for Fight of the Year, a seven knockdown tour through hell. Salido followed that victory by coming off the floor twice in a breathless decision loss to Rocky Martinez (29-2-3, 17 KO) in April 2015 and then came right back to trade knockdowns with Martinez in an arguably better fight, and disputed draw, on the undercard of Floyd Mayweather-Andre Berto in September.
That neither Salido-Martinez fight made the BWAA’s list of Fight of the Year finalists for 2015 (so far, amendments always possible) is head scratching. That neither was even the best fight in the division this year is jaw dropping.
No, that honor goes to another undercard clash, this time supporting and stealing thunder from Saul Alvarez-Miguel Cotto.
A classic from start to finish, Francisco Vargas (23-0-1, 17 KO) came off the floor in the fourth and battled threw a badly damaged eye to stop Japan’s Takashi Miura (29-3-2, 22 KO) for the WBC belt. It was a Gatti-esque turnaround that demanded a sequel.
It looks like we’ll get one in 2016. It also looks like we’ll get Martinez-Salido III.
And, with a win this weekend, Walters-Uchiyama.
That, in hockey parlance, would be one hell of a hat trick.
This is boxing, and the possibilities boxing can present, at its very best. It’s a combination of multiple markets, established talents from lower classes, divisional talent in need of foes, and fresh faces ready to be proven. The bringing together of markets is often the hardest part.
As the sport gets farther down the scale, especially in this multi-title era, history says it is more difficult to bring together the sports best in a given division. The reasons for that are pretty simple.
Boxing is an international sport. Money is usually lighter as the fighters become so. A fighter who can carve an economic niche in Asia can find good foes and paydays in that market. The same is true for fighters in the America’s. The wide breadth of fans, meaning those who don’t anxiously await the next Uchiyama fight on YouTube, don’t always know much about each other’s best guys.
Without that knowing, there isn’t as much demand to supply as there is in a class like welterweight or middleweight. There, the talent pool is more centralized to one area or one market. There is reason to shine the brightest light possible to feed fresh matches.
Uchiyama is the sort of talent who the world of fans would have benefited in seeing two or three years ago. For his own benefit, a move outside his established market may be coming a little on the wrong side of his prime at age 36.
How many fight fans really knew to ask for him sooner?
How many will really know what they’re getting heading into a possible Uchiyama-Walters clash?
If Uchiyama still has the A-game to make it what it could be, those who don’t know will get a hell of a pleasant surprise. They will know Miura, whom Uchiyama stopped in 2011, because of what they saw in Vargas. They definitely know Martinez and Salido.
They’re also getting to know IBF titlist Jose Pedraza (21-0, 12 KO) and WBA sub-titlist Javier Fortuna (29-0-1, 21 KO). This being boxing, there will still be promotional barriers between the PBC and non-PBC sides of the sport.
Mix Pedraza and Fortuna with Salido and Martinez on one side. Mix Uchiyama and/or Walters with the Vargas-Miura rematch winner. Guess what we have?
A whole bunch of fights people will want to see with a wide cast of characters both familiar and fresh. That’s a red-hot division.
With a Walters win this weekend to ice the anticipation cake, that’s Jr. lightweight heading into 2016.
Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at
roldboxing@hotmail.com
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