We start outside London at the palatial home of Mr.Eddie Hearn with a minor heavyweight title on the line, but more importantly, the top heavyweight in the world, not named Fury or Joshua, facing a top-level opponent and his chance to face Fury at risk.
Dillian Whyte had been admired for his willingness to face any top opponent during his rise to the near-top of the division and for four rounds against former WBA champion and long-time contender Alexander Povetkin, Whyte looked every bit the part of a dangerous threat to either WBC champion Tyson Fury or the holder of all three of the other titles and the last person to defeat Whyte in Anthony Joshua.
Whyte knocked Povetkin down twice in the fourth round and looked to have Povetkin stung in the fifth round before he dropped his hands slightly as they exchanged punches at close quarters and Povetkin uncorked a short left uppercut that dropped Whyte onto his back along the ropes with the referee immediately signaling an end to the fight.
Whyte exercised his rematch clause after the fight, so the two will square off in the fall or winter 2021 and I'd suspect that Whyte will be favored after dominating all but one second in the first fight, but Povetkin has the puncher's chance to repeat.
Povetkin's career has shown that he has been unable to defeat the "super heavyweights" losing to Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko but defeating everyone else that is closer to his size.
And while this win at 40 years old won't help him against the much larger Joshua and Tyson Fury, it will enable him to continue to get fights for quite some time and Povetkin will always have a chance to pull a win from the flames.
Top Rank and ESPN+ took over in the evening with a card from their Las Vegas "bubble" with the main event that looked very even with former WBO light heavyweight champion Eleider Alvarez matched against Joe Smith in a semi-final to crown a new WBO champion after Canelo Alvarez vacated that championship.
It looked to be a very tight fight with Alvarez expected to box against the rock-fisted Smith, who hasn't always thrown enough punches in his defeats to Sullivan Barrera and Dmitry Bivol.
Instead, Smith threw lots of punches, won every round on my card by refusing to allow Alvarez to keep away from his attack, and then ended the fight with an impressive right and left that sent Alvarez to the apron and despite a nice effort to reach his feet, Alvarez was counted out.
For Smith, the win showed a new dimension for the second-hardest puncher in the light heavyweight division (after Artur Beterbiev) and he'll be a strong favorite in the finals against the winner of the Maxim Vlasov-Umar Salamov semi in the finals.
As for Alvarez, "The Storm" may have found his level as a top ten fighter, but below the top five and after two losses in a row, Alvarez might be a fighter in decline.
Rob Brant dominated Vitaly Kopylenko, imposed an impressive mouse under the left eye of Kopylenko, and forced Kopylenko to inform referee Jay Nady that his vision was handicapped and that he would not be able to continue after the end of the fifth round.
For Brant, it was an impressive win, but considering Kopylenko's limited skills and style, Brant's speed overwhelmed him in the victory but did little to prove that anything would be different in the contracted third fight against Japan's Ryota Murata.
Brant upset Murata by decision in their first fight in October 2018 but lost the rematch by second-round knockout in July 2019.
And then there's PBC- I always imagine Bea Arthur opening the door with "Then there's Maude" when I write that phrase as it seems I do often when writing about PBC, with another weak card, this one from Los Angeles as former welterweight champion Shawn Porter won every round over Germany's Sebastian Formella on every card in winning a unanimous decision and winning a minor title as well as the mandatory spot for Errol Spence's WBC title.
One couldn't quibble with Porter's performance other than maybe not scoring a knockout over an opponent that was easily below his level, but Porter never became lazy or clownish as he continued to move forward all night.
Give some credit to Formella, who was trying all evening and didn't fight merely to survive, but he was out of his league and should not have been in a title eliminator, against a fighter of the caliber of Shawn Porter, and in the main event on national network television.
Just think both Fox cards coming up have similar main events as well.
Ugh.
The co-feature saw the world's tallest junior middleweight in 6'6 Sebastian Fundora, who stopped veteran Nathaniel Gallimore in six rounds.
Gallimore, who owns a victory over WBA and IBF champion Jeison Rosario, has basically been a gatekeeper type for the PBC-dominated division and usually shows a good chin along with making a decent fight, but against the lanky Fundora, he was unable to get any offense going at all.
Fundora, who can look heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in the eye, is going to give junior middleweights a unique look that no other fighter can prepare for, but he isn't a typical jab and dance man from the outside.
Fundora might be best served to do that from the outside against the best of the division, but against fighters such as Gallimore, Fundora has been able to stand on the inside and attack effectively.
I had Fundora ahead after five rounds, 49-45, and I would be interested to see Fundora's next step up in competition.
In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica gained some ground on me with five points to my three with Ramon scoring an extra point for Rob Brant and Sebastian Fundora's stoppage wins.
The total is currently 94-86.
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