(Almost) All American Featherweight
Can geographic alignment add a spark to a loaded weight class?
Going into Saturday, it was easy to start to wonder if WBA featherweight titlist Nick Ball was underrated.
Since a draw with the tricky Rey Vargas, Ball had done nothing but win against some talented opposition. He handed Raymond Ford and Sam Goodman their first losses and was favored over the visiting Brandon Figueroa. He was talking about pursuing unification bouts in the future.
A left hook in the twelfth round sent him crashing to the floor and a follow up assault put all those thoughts aside.
Figueroa, who had looked flat in a second loss to Stephen Fulton and then struggled with veteran Joet Gonzalez, is back in the title mix at 126 pounds. It comes one week after Bruce Carrington knocked out Carlos Castro to fill a WBC vacancy, giving us not just two new titlists but two exciting fights in as many weeks.
Figueroa and Carrington did more than change the look of the title division. They gave it an element of geographic alignment. Featherweight already had Angelo Leo reigning as IBF champion. Now three of the four major recognized titlists in the class call the U.S. home and the opportunity is there to make more happen.
The outlier is Mexico’s WBO titlist Rafael Espinoza, the presumptive top fighter in the division. “El Divino” hasn’t beaten much quality aside from Olympic gold medalist Robeisy Ramirez but he hasn’t had to. At a freakish 6’1 with power and a motor, Espinoza is a nightmare matchup who makes good fights.
Presumptive isn’t fully tested. Ramirez had Espinoza down and almost out the first time they fought. We need to see more.
There’s no reason to think we can’t.
Espinoza and Brookylyn’s Carrington are both promoted by Top Rank. Leo, of New Mexico, has worked with the company before, notably in his title win versus Luis Alberto Lopez, and is promoted by ProBox. Figueroa brings the Texas market and a relationship with the PBC.
Sometimes geography isn’t enough. However, there is just enough promotional alignment and and previous working together to give hope we don’t have to watch these men act as four islands from each other.
It may too much to ask to think we can get to the first undisputed featherweight champion since Vicente Saldivar retired for the first time in 1967. There are excellent matches that could get us in that direction.
Does anyone think Figueroa-Leo wouldn’t be a tremendous clash? Could the speed and combinations of Carrington overcome the length and volume of Espinoza?
The incentive is more than each other. Junior featherweight king Naoya Inoue doesn’t have featherweight on his radar…yet. He is locked in on a superfight Junto Nakatani in May and there is a growing chorus trying to set up another clash with junior bantamweight champion “Bam” Rodriguez. Inoue could lose either of those fights.
If he doesn’t…
Inoue is arguably the biggest money attraction ever below featherweight, setting revenue marks in Japan we simply haven’t seen at those weights. He’s amassed a global following while being a fixture on pound for pound lists for a decade.
Part of the reason Nakatani and Rodriguez are desirable foes for him is because they’ve made themselves showdown targets. Showdown targets make profitable opponents.
Some consolidation at featherweight can create the same buzz for the future. Inoue has done almost everything. Could Carrington lure him to the Garden? Could Inoue bring any of them to Japan for career high paydays? Could a pair of unified titlists, if the sport can get it down to two, give him a new story to tell in 2027?
Featherweight has talent. It has a solid market and geographic alignment. It has a superstar just four pounds away.
The potential is there for the most exciting era in the division since the days of Pacquiao, Barrera, Morales, and Marquez.