Alvarez Vs. Gomez: Star Power or Waste of Time?

Saul "Canelo" Alvarez and Alfonso Gomez, now official for the Mayweather-Ortiz undercard on September 17, provokes mixed feelings. On one hand, Gomez is a nice developmental fight for Alvarez and it should be hotly contested while it lasts. On the other hand, it's a farce of a world title bout featuring an undeserving champion against an equally undeserving challenger. The purist finds the fight putrid. The realist is okay with it.

The "Human Beat Box" nickname used in this week's title not only refers to Gomez's rapping "skills," but also to the fact that he's likely to take a beating at the Staples Center that night. The last time Gomez was in the ring against an elite fighter, Miguel Cotto easily dismissed The Contender cast member, literally rolling his eyes at the ease of it all. Of course, El Canelo is not elite. So, that's something.

Gomez deserves respect as an honest fighter who always puts in an earnest effort. He's the boxing equivalent of a really solid back-up catcher, but there is a reason back-up catchers rarely make the All-Star game. If anyone can make the 21-year-old prospect/champion, Alvarez, fight with urgency, though, it's a guy like Gomez, who is taking this fight seriously, even if most aren't.

For the record, the Star Power pay-per-view should be a nice night of action, with the Mayweather-Ortiz main event probably being the slowest fight of the card.

Erik Morales and Jorge Barrios couldn't put on a bad performance against one another if they tried. Yeah, Barrios has been inactive, both are well past their primes, and, of course, there's the ridiculous WBC 140 lb. title bout designation. But, as far as action goes, there should be a good 4-6 rounds of solid work with plenty of blood for those who demand "War."

Jessie Vargas-Josesito Lopez, also signed for the card, has real promise. Lopez is a blue-collar fighter brought up the old-school way, with tough match-ups against prospects and solid veterans. And Vargas is the 22-year-old wunderkind who has yet to be tested against a real, prime fighter. Nice fight, despite the less-than-marquee names involved.

Throw in the Alvarez-Gomez bout and you have a pretty good show that has been tainted by Golden Boy's sudden love affair with the WBC's Three-card Monte routine. Whether it's worth 50-60 bucks, well, that's another story. For me to pay that much, it better be Mayweather vs. Pacquiao, with a Marquez-Rios and Pavlik-Bute chaser.

The knee-jerk reaction among shilling scribes and those wanting to sound informed is to immediately blast all things Golden Boy, HBO, and Al Haymon -- and this card is the trifecta of boxing scapegoats, so be ready for wave after wave of fake outrage. This is by no means an absolution of guilt, only a push to treat all the slugs equally and assign blame across the board.

Make no mistake about it, Golden Boy and the WBC crapped on an otherwise decent card by attaching two bogus world title farces. But like fans have had to do for decades, they'll just have to ignore the crap and focus on the fighting. Everybody knows that Alvarez is not a real world champion and that the winner of Morales-Barrios shouldn't even be in the WBC's top 10, much less their champion.

These things should be blasted out to cyberspace, but they're really only a part of the putrid jigsaw puzzle of corruption and confusion that boxing has become.

Alvarez-Gomez, Morales-Barrios, Vargas-Lopez, and Mayweathe-Ortiz make up a good card of solid action. If the Jhonny Gonzalez-Elio Rojas bout makes the TV card, all the better. Boxing politics and WBC douche-baggery be damned.

After all, nobody cared that Brandon Rios' title was of the paper variety -- Isn't it funny how some people exhibit such selective outrage? Makes you wonder why that is --