You win some, you lose some — that’s life, baby. And boxing is no different.
We weren’t short of stories in the world of boxing across April, but the start of spring was kinder to some than others.
Let’s get straight into a look back at what April served up in the boxing world:
Winners
Tyson Fury
If you return from your fifth retirement to chalk up an easy win in front of (close to) 60,000 fans — and in the same month sign a multi-million dollar deal to fight your biggest career rival — then you deserve to be called a winner.
Sure, there are pages of small print attached.
We still don’t have a date or venue for Fury’s overdue heavyweight duel with Anthony Joshua, but the right noises are coming from the right places to suggest that this time — yes, this time — it’ll come to fruition.
In the ring, Fury looked better than most expected against the tough Arslanbek Makhmudov. But other than dodging a few wild swings from the Canadian-Russian in the opening two rounds, he wasn’t exactly tested the way he should have been after another spell of inactivity.
We might not see the “Gypsy King” back in the ring before the Joshua fight in the fall — and for the sake of the health of this heavyweight grudge match, let’s hope we don’t — so keep your eyes peeled at the end of the year to see which column Fury falls into next time in what could prove the be the definitive fight of his career.
Deontay Wilder
Speaking of returns: Wilder’s back!
“The Bronze Bomber” won a messy fight against veteran Derek Chisora at the start of the month. The kind of “messy” that you see on the highway after a crash. You’re not quite sure what you’re watching, whether you should be watching, but you slow the car down and take a peek anyway.
The 45th win of his 50th career fight retired Chisora (until his next fight) and threw Wilder’s name back into the heavyweight circus for another payday before considering his own future in the sport.
Anthony Joshua? It doesn’t seem likely. Oleksandr Usyk in front of 136,000 fans in San Francisco under the iVB banner? Hahaha. Jarrell Miller? You could be onto something there.
Miller’s back in the good books of some fight fans, but not enough to be a winner this month. It turns out losing your toupee and turning into a bit of a goofball can override a multitude of sins outside the ring, and the 1,000-plus punches he threw in his recent win over Lenier Pero could be the perfect selling point for a dust-up with Wilder.
Tenshin Nasukawa
Nasukawa enjoyed a career-best performance, thanks to a one-sided beat down of future Hall of Famer Juan Francisco Estrada.
The knives were out for the kickboxing legend after dropping his first boxing match to Takuma Inoue in November, but an impressive ninth-round stoppage of the Mexican legend has spring-boarded him back into contention in bantamweight conversations.
A rematch with Inoue is looming. Nasukawa is a national icon in Japan, and just nine fights into his professional boxing career, he is clearly still learning — and his ceiling is higher than most in his position.
Inoue returns this weekend against the dangerous Kazuto Ioka, and if he prevails, talks will start after Nasukawa’s impressive WBC eliminator victory over Estrada.
Ellie Scotney
Scotney became Great Britain’s youngest undisputed world champion after beating Mayelli Flores by unanimous decision at the Olympia in London.
And if that wasn’t enough, she’s been promised a Mercedes G Wagon by her promoter, Jake Paul, after she divulged in a pre-fight interview that she still takes the bus to her East London gym.
The only problem? Scotney doesn’t have a driver’s license, but let’s not let the details get in the way of a heart-warming story between fighter and promoter.
Scotney holds all the hardware at super bantamweight and is attracting the attention of Australia’s Skye Nicolson, who extended her unbeaten record at the weight to 3-0 after besting Mariah Turner.
Don’t expect much trash talk between these two, and if they do fight, expect more of a chess match than a slugfest. Just three stoppages in their combined 29 fights doesn’t scream a female Hagler-Hearns.
Anthony Joshua
Joshua trained in the Valencian sunshine in Spain, cheered on his mate, Chisora, became a content creator while filming Fury’s win over Makhmudov on his phone and signed a multimillion dollar two-fight deal.
Not a bad month for him or his accountant.
Joshua won his standoff with Fury inside Tottenham Hotspur Stadium by sitting down and resisting the urge to engage with the animated Fury and the confused Turki Alalshikh, declaring himself the landlord of their rivalry and looking like the coolest man in the building doing so.
Some of that aura dissipated upon the announcement of his July 25 return against the most-Googled heavyweight of the month, Kristian Prenga, but we have been soft-launched this news for months, so there should be little surprise that AJ wants to grease his wheels before getting in the ring with Fury.
Losers
Conor Benn
Benn might have won against Regis Prograis, but considering the New Orleans fighter was competing at the highest weight of his career, as a 37-year-old and on — checks notes — one leg, the fact that Benn wasn’t able to deliver a stoppage win should be scrutinized.
The “Destroyer” hasn’t destroyed anything — except his reputation — since April 2022, three months before testing positive for the banned substance Clomifene in a Voluntary Anti-Doping Association test.
He’s now confirmed as a Zuffa fighter, but the direction of the 29-year-old might need more careful planning than first thought.
Can Benn really make welterweight again? And if he can’t, who can he beat? Now that he has closed his rivalry with Chris Eubank Jr., the Benn complex doesn’t appear any closer to being solved.
Arslanbek Makhmudov
After beating Great Britain’s beloved Dave Allen last October, Makhmudov had a big platform to launch in the heavyweight division.
He got the call from Team Fury and decided to stake it all on the first round against Tyson Fury in search of the 14th first-round knockout of his career.
In what was an incredibly messy three minutes, Makhmudov charged Fury like a bull to a matador, unable to connect with anything notable and in the subsequent nine rounds got picked apart by a Fury running in second gear.
Makhmudov is a limited fighter. He packs one hell of a punch against a stationary opponent but confirmed he doesn’t belong near the top of the heavyweights.
Lawrence Okolie
Here we go again …
It feels like there is always a spot among the losers for a fighter who fails a drug test. And rightly so.
Okolie’s proposed heavyweight fight with Tony Yoka was cannedl, along with the entire undercard, after the cruiserweight-turned-heavy returned an adverse finding in a VADA test.
Okolie has claimed his innocence and blamed the positive test on treatment for an elbow injury during camp, and I guess the truth will come out in the months that follow. Or maybe it won’t.
It probably won’t.
Juan Francisco Estrada
Estrada may well be staring at the end of his career after his loss to Nasukawa.
Two stoppage losses in his last three fights, both against younger opponents, are telling — especially for a fighter who had never previously been halted.
At 36, he’s done more than enough. A future Hall of Famer, a defining figure at super flyweight, and, at his peak, one of the finest technicians in the sport.
There are still options, if he wants them.
If Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez moves on from the division and Estrada can still comfortably make the weight, one last shot at a title isn’t out of the question. Or perhaps something quieter: a final outing back home in Mexico, on his terms, before calling it time.
Daniel Kinahan
Suspected crime boss Daniel Kinahan was arrested in the United Arab Emirates in relation to alleged serious organized crime offenses.
The United States imposed sanctions against him in April 2022 after identifying him, along with several family members, as senior figures within the Kinahan organized crime cartel.
Kinahan has long been a name associated with boxing.
His now-defunct boxing management company, MTK Global, looked after 100s of fighters, and Kinahan himself worked as a personal adviser to Tyson Fury when the Brit held the heavyweight world title.