It was a wildly busy night in the world of boxing, even with the postponement of the pay-per-view card centered around unified lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez and George Kambosos.
But the fighter who might make the most sense for him to face next — provided he beats John Riel Casimero in their title unification bout on Aug.
It’s also the best chance for Inoue to try and push past Terence Crawford or Canelo Alvarez into the Top 2 in the pound-for-pound rankings in the short-term.
If he unifies the titles at 118 pounds, he would probably look towards a divisional move up to 122 pounds, where some new fights and new challenges would await.
Chavez Jr., while having never lived up to his family name, is a former WBC middleweight champion with nearly 60 pro boxing fights.
Yes, an aging, allegedly washed-up Silva kind of whooped up on a boxing veteran who has beaten the likes of Marco Antonio Rubio and Andy Lee — a fighter that went the distance with Canelo Alvarez, and fought Daniel Jacobs just a year and a half ago.
That’s significant in and of itself, to see one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time — a former UFC middleweight champion for seven years — put on a sterling performance in another combat sport.
All of this is to say, Silva made himself a major commodity Saturday night for a future boxing match against a fellow legend, a YouTuber, or any number of other individuals who could generate a lot of buzz.
It would probably have to be an exhibition, but you’re telling me that wouldn’t sell pay-per-view units? Silva could be looking at one of his biggest fight purses ever — perhaps his biggest ever, period — and he’s closer to 50 than he is 40.
What else was Charlo supposed to do? In the sixth round, he did everything but send Juan Montiel to the canvas, and yet the challenger kept on coming.
Charlo had to deal with a fighter who had a good chin on Saturday night — a fighter who was incredibly awkward as he switched stances with herky-jerky motion early in the bout.
He has all the good boxing qualities he needs — decent power, accurate punching and a solid ring acumen.
In most cases, that speaks poorly of the champion against someone with credentials like Montiel.
And while a title defense is a title defense, Mayer is going to have to be better in order to reach her goal of unifying the junior lightweight division.
So this is one of those old clichés that fits in team sports — it’s easier to learn from wins than from losses, especially in boxing where titles and livelihoods are involved if titles are lost.
And now she can move on to what she had been focused on since the start of the year – unifying her division.