Carlos Takam, a heavyweight contender of towering anonymity, will be excited and no doubt surprised to be a pay-per-view star in Cardiff on Saturday week when he steps in as a replacement challenger for the world titles held by Anthony Joshua.
Equally put out of their stride will be those boxing fans who had paid upfront to watch the unbeaten Joshua, the sport’s No1 attraction, put his WBA and IBF belts on the line against the more credible Kubrat Pulev, who withdrew on Monday with a shoulder injury. And Pulev, the Bulgarian veteran with a passable CV, was no great attraction in the first place.
Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, would have to redraft his entire business plan for the evening to bring the show back to subscription level on Sky Sports, however, so there will be widespread resentment among supporters who will rightly feel they are being shortchanged.
The high-risk side of boxing promotion is there are no guarantees until the fighters get in the ring because injuries are common in training, especially in the bigger weights. Nevertheless, this fight is already an anticlimax – with no disrespect to Mr Takam, who probably was the most Googled fighter in the business when he was announced as Pulev’s replacement.
The International Boxing Federation has given its blessing to Takam as next in line to step in for Pulev, who was their mandatory challenger – because the alternative was scrapping the £30m promotion. This has little to do with the integrity of the contest.
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Hearn insists he always had Takam standing by, which makes sense. But nobody paying out in advance was aware of that. Now they are locked into watching Joshua go to work on a 36-year-old opponent who has been toiling in the shadows since turning professional after the 2004 Olympics, where he lost his only bout, 32-19, to the Egyptian Mohamed Aly.
Born in Cameroon, Takam calls France home, where he has had the majority of his 39 professional bouts. The then unbeaten Grégory Tony (who would fade fast thereafter) outpointed him in 2009, the highly rated Alexander Povetkin knocked him out three years ago and Joseph Parker, the New Zealander who laboured to a points win over Hughie Fury in Manchester last month, outpointed him over 12 rounds last year.
Takam has also drawn with the experienced Cuban exile Mike Perez, who last month lost a dull fight on points against Mairis Briedis in the World Boxing Super Series cruiserweight tournament.
Joshua’s odds have shortened from 1-33 when he was due to meet Pulev to 1-50 against Takam.
So it is easy to see why a Joshua-Takam fight in an echoing Principality Stadium on what might be a cool October Saturday evening is going to excite few people outside the challenger’s immediate circle.
Trouble beyond the ropes
The death on Sunday of a teenage boxing fan, who is believed to have been stabbed in the neck outside a show in Walsall on Saturday night, has sent a shudder through the sport. Crowd violence has intermittently been a problem in boxing but there has been a worrying upsurge lately, notably in Stuttgart two weeks ago when Chris Eubank Jr knocked out Avni Yildirim, then at Wembley on Saturday night when George Groves did the same to Jamie Cox.
Eubank and Groves are scheduled to meet in London in January or February and maybe the midwinter chill will dissuade any fans from putting on a free show outside the ring.
Police have launched a murder inquiry into the death in Walsall after what they describe as “large-scale disorder” in which several other fans were injured. It was cruelly ironic that the show featured the local boxer Jordan Clayton, who is a prominent supporter of Birmingham’s Boxers Against Blades campaign.
The event promoters, Black Country Boxing, said they conducted a knife search on fans entering the venue but clearly control outside was nowhere near as stringent.