Amir Mansour had a great year in 2014. He came into the year undefeated at 19-0-0 with 15 knockouts and was coming off of a stoppage over the once beaten Kelvin Price. He went into a bout with Steve Cunningham which would decide which American heavyweight would move up in the ranks and back into contention. The fight turned out to be one of the best of the year with a lot of punches thrown and knock downs on both sides.
In the fifth round of the fight between Mansour and Cunningham, Amir dropped Cunningham quite heavily two times. It looked as though Mansour was closing in on yet another stoppage win, but Steve managed to find a way back into the fight and even dropped Mansour in the tenth round before coming away with a close but fair decision.
Whilst the fight was a loss for Mansour it displayed his aggressive nature, his ability to throw a lot of big bombs and his heart. He then had another fight in November against Fred Kassi, a decent heavyweight who has 18 wins from 20 fights and Amir would go on to win this one by a stoppage in the seventh.
Amir Mansour now has a record of 21-1-0 (16KO) which is pretty decent and is scheduled to fight again in early May but the question is who should his opponent be? So far it simply listed as TBA but at some point a fight is going to have to be announced and at 42 years of age Mansour doesn’t have much time on his side. If he wants to make some good money and impact the heavyweight division before his retirement tune ups have to go and every fight must be a meaningful one. This is why I think a good fight might be on the cards as his team are going to be looking for a highly ranked contender type heavyweight to move Mansour into a few big fights this year and next before they consider his retirement.
A great choice of opponent would be someone like Mansour who comes forward and throws punches and for that reason a matchup against someone like Dereck Chisora, Chris Arreola or Lucas Browne would be fantastic.