7 Boxing Superfights We Need to See in 2024

It was a good year in the boxing ring.

Superstars were active. And in some cases, they even fought one another.

So it's easy to understand why fight fans would be hungry for more.

As the calendar flips from 2023 to 2024, there are mega-events on the horizon that seem almost a lock to occur and another handful that we're hoping Santa can bring late.

The B/R combat team sat down amid the holiday revelry and compiled a list of the highest-level fights we're most looking forward to seeing across multiple weight classes.

Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought of your own in the comments.

A date is set. Contracts are signed. The city is preparing.

Yes Virginia, it seems there might just be a significant heavyweight title fight in 2024.

Unless boxing reality rears its oft-ugly head and scuttles things, championship claimants Tyson Fury (WBC) and Oleksandr Usyk (IBF/WBA/WBO) will crown the division's first undisputed kingpin since Lennox Lewis beat Evander Holyfield in Las Vegas in 1999.

They're on the docket for February 17 in the burgeoning combat sports kingdom of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where Fury very nearly lost his place in line when he was dropped and taken the distance by ring newbie Francis Ngannou before getting a split decision in October.

But at the presser to announce things a few weeks later, he was in all-time form.

"(Usyk's) balls have shriveled up now. Sissy with an earring in, sausage," Fury said.

"Motherf--ker, you're getting knocked out cold. You can't beat me, you can never beat me. If you beat me in your dreams, you better wake up and apologize.

"I stole that from Ali, by the way, sorry."

We'll graduate from signed and sealed to fingers crossed.

That's been the status of a light heavyweight unification between champs Dmitry Bivol (WBA) and Artur Beterbiev (IBF/WBC/WBO) for what feels like forever, as the two have combined for 14 victories in top-tier title fights and begun following those wins with calls for a get together.

That was again the case for Bivol after he blanked British contender Lyndon Arthur over 12 rounds last weekend in Riyadh, and it seems close to actually happening, provided Beterbiev successfully defends his trio of belts against ex-168-pound champ Callum Smith.

Smith has won two fights in a combined six rounds since climbing to 175 following a super middleweight loss to Canelo Alvarez, but Beterbiev is one of the sport's rarest breeds with a 100 percent KO rate—including eight title-fight wins in 60 total rounds.

"It was good sparring for me (against Arthur)," Bivol said after Saturday's fight.

"I'm glad that the end of the year I got this fight and now I see my way to my goal, to undisputed against the winner of Beterbiev-Smith. I hope this fight will happen in 2024."

Speaking of Canelo, he's got another would-be rival.

David Benavidez has an unbeaten resume that includes a pair of WBC title reigns at 168 pounds, neither of which ended inside a ring.

His first championship claim was halted by a failed drug test in 2018 and a successful re-ascension was foiled when he missed weight for a title defense in 2020. But he never went away and has begun banging the drum for a third run, which means a date with Alvarez.

Meanwhile, boxing's signature Mexican superstar has been picking up belts of varying worth in the weight class since 2018 and unified the four most recognized trinkets with defeats of the aforementioned Smith, Billy Joe Saunders and Caleb Plant in 2020 and 2021.

He's 9-0 with four KOs in the weight class and said after a defeat of Jermell Charlo in September that he'd return for Cinco de Mayo weekend in 2024—though, as some critics have since expounded on, he didn't call for Benavidez by name.

"Whoever," he said. "I don't f--king care."

It's not the sport's most glamorous weight class.

But there's a big fight to be had at 154 pounds.

Though his most recent fight was a barely combative 12-rounder against Alvarez, let's not forget that Jermell Charlo earned a four-belt claim in his own kingdom before the sport's ever-present sanctioning body absurdly took it away.

That said, it may have created a dispute that needs settling.

Second-generation slugger Tim Tszyu swooped in and put his stamp on Charlo's vacated WBO title with a 12-round defeat of Brian Mendoza in October, which ran his record to a pristine 24-0 and provided an opportunity for a post-fight callout.

"Charloooooooo. Charloooooo, where you at?" he howled.

The two men had been set to meet in January 2023, but the bout was shelved after Charlo broke his left hand during training and then abandoned when he got the date with Alvarez.

Charlo voluntarily relinquished his IBF title in November rather than following through with a purse bid for a mandatory defense against Bakhram Murtazaliev.

Still, Tszyu said, it's their bout that determines the top man.

"He fought Canelo, the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world," he said. "(Charlo) is the best 154, but let's prove to everyone who is really the king of the division."

Terence Crawford has earned the right to call his shots.

He's unbeaten in 40 fights, has earned belts in three divisions and achieved four-belt status in two of them, most recently thanks to a nine-round brutalizing of Errol Spence Jr. at 147.

So no one ought to blame him if he follows a rematch with Spence by chasing a huge bout with Alvarez at 168 or perhaps a champ-champ date with a still-reigning Charlo at 154.

If he stays at welterweight, though, Jaron Ennis would like to see him.

A 26-year-old from Philadelphia, Ennis has scored 28 KOs in 31 straight victories, and, like Tszyu at 154, was elevated to a championship claim of his own when the IBF stripped Crawford's claim after he was contractually committed to a second bout with Spence instead of a mandatory defense against Ennis, who'd been holding its "interim" title.

But while the backstory is regrettable, the menace is tantalizing.

"Come get your belt back," Ennis dared Crawford, "if you think you're the best in the world."

It's nice when there's a fight to be made and both guys seem to want it.

That's the case for a showdown at 140 pounds between Devin Haney and Ryan Garcia, who've been calling each other's names since their early pro days at 135.

Haney ultimately won all four significant belts at lightweight before recently climbing to super lightweight and whipping Regis Prograis to win the WBC's championship.

Garcia briefly held the WBC's interim status at lightweight but never landed a full-fledged title shot before moving full time to his new weight class in 2022.

He's 3-1 with two KOs—losing to Gervonta Davis in a catchweight bout at 136—in his last four fights, and both he and Haney had been actively matchmaking on social media before the reigning champ took to DAZN over the weekend to suggest a deal could be close.

"Ryan Garcia has called me out, and I've called him out for years," Haney said. "We're in negotiations and it could be next. I wanna make the biggest fights happen, and I think it's time me and Ryan get it on. More than likely, it's next."

Even with Haney and Garcia, and Teofimo Lopez, too, having graduated to the 140-pound ranks, it's not as if the landscape at lightweight was left barren and worthless.

Eight months after his finish of Garcia, Davis still has the second-tier title he held during Haney's full-fledged reign at 135, and he's got a new foil moving into the neighborhood, too.

Ladies and gentlemen, we give you Shakur Stevenson.

The former Olympic medalist began his pro career with belts at 126 and 130 pounds and became a three-division claimant in November with a decision over Edwin De Los Santos that earned him the WBC's vacated championship at lightweight.

And with the new jewelry came the immediate back-and-forth between him and Davis, neither of whom tends to shy from such dissension. In fact, the biggest obstacle between here and fight night may be the competitive lines often drawn between Stevenson's apparatus at Top Rank and the Premier Boxing Champions group with which Davis often works.

But if it happens, it's a fascinating contrast of Stevenson's boxing mastery and Davis' perpetual menace.

"Honestly, number one is Tank," Stevenson told the Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast. "Me and Tank is the best fight. You can name 15 other fighters, but there's one fight that, truthfully, needs to happen in boxing."