It’s that time again, and the various publications and boxing websites are listing their respective picks for Fighter of The Year. Far from an easy choice to make this year, there are a few great fighters who enjoyed a stellar 12 months and are arguably deserving of the honour.
Let’s break it down:
It’s one of the most intriguing rematches in boxing and it could happen in March. Vasyl Lomachenko, for many The Fighter of The Year, has been beaten by just two fighters in his entire career, amateur and pro – and the pro defeat, to tough Mexican Orlando Salido, remains the sole unavenged blemish on the super-featherweight champ’s C.V.
But, according to “Hi-Tech” himself, the rematch is very likely for March, in either Las Vegas or Los Angeles.
Fight fans are hoping 2017 will provide them with a good, exciting year of heavyweight action. This year, largely dominated by reigning IBF champ Anthony Joshua (who was, with three title fights fought, the most active heavyweight champion) was no great year, but there are signs that 2017 could be a fine one for the big men of the sport.
The year will be kick-started by the ring return of Deontay Wilder, who will in February fight for the first time since injuring his hand and his biceps whilst throwing bombs at the rock of a head owned by Chris Arreola. Anxious to get back in there having endured just over seven months of enforced inactivity, Wilder, 37-0(36) will face a perceived soft touch in Poland’s Andrzej Wawrzyk on February 25 in Birmingham, Alabama.
Light-heavyweight destroyer Artur Beterbiev gave boxing junkies one more slice of KO action last night in Quebec, and even if the action lasted less than three minutes, fight fans who wanted to see a little more fight action before Christmas were happy with the Russian power puncher’s latest handiwork.
Destroying Isidro Prieto in just 2:44 of the opening round, Beterbiev improved to 11-0(11); he has still to be taken beyond the seventh round. Prieto is both experienced and (usually) durable, having never been stopped, yet this meant absolutely nothing against the lethal-punching heir to the 175-pound throne. Indeed, people are now asking if any light-heavyweight – be it Andre Ward, Adonis Stevenson or Sergey Kovalev – can beat Beterbiev? Can any 175-pounder take the man’s power!
There seems to be just one thing Conor McGregor wants for 2017, and that’s a super-fight (at least that’s what it would be billed as) with Floyd Mayweather Junior. For weeks now (or is it months?) McGregor and Mayweather have been going back and forth, exchanging insults.
And, despite the fact that there seems to be a slim at best chance that this fight actually takes place, they hype sure is big. The latest episode in the seemingly never to be concluded saga is the not all all Christmasy message the MMA star had for Mayweather on Instagram.
So, Tyson Fury, the unbeaten, never-lost-the-belts-in-the-ring, former heavyweight champion – have you missed him? It’s been pretty quiet on the Tyson front these past few weeks, save for the odd Twitter outburst, and Fury has now been out of action for almost 13 months.
Fans everywhere know all about the troubles Fury encountered almost as soon as he arrived back home from Germany having sensationally relieved Wladimir Klitschko of his heavyweight titles, and ever since fans have been wondering if we will see Fury in any further big fights. The latest on this according to the man who knows him best, in trainer and uncle Peter Fury, is that “The Gypsy King” is back training and can be expected to fight again “around April/May next year.”
Is Danny Jacobs a better fighter than David Lemieux? Matthew Macklin? Kassim Ouma? Daniel Geale? Trainer Abel Sanchez, who of course works with middleweight king Gennady Golovkin, says the man who will next share a ring with GGG is indeed better than all previous opposition the 36-0 star has faced.
Speaking with ESPN.com, Sanchez said that while he feels Triple-G defeats Jacobs, “decisively and easily,” he hopes the critics give his fighter plenty of respect for beating Jacobs on March 18.
Thirty years ago, to the attention of practically no-one, former heavyweight king George Foreman began training for a comeback that was mostly, if not exclusively inspired by a need for money. “Big George,” aged 37 and having been largely forgotten by the sports world, had not boxed, or even clenched his fist in anger (as he would say himself later) for a decade.
It was a dangerous decision to attempt a ring return, and if George had listened to the “experts,” he would not have donned the gloves again and tried, quite ludicrously the critics would say, to lure reigning heavyweight champ Mike Tyson into defending against him. We all saw this past Saturday how perilous it can be for a once great fighter to try and do it again when at an advanced age. And even if Foreman was far, far younger in his first comeback fight than Bernard Hopkins was in his (hopefully) final one, the age of 37 was seen as too advanced to be returning to action after ten years out – certainly in 1987 it was.
British heavyweight Dillian Whyte has Tweeted how he and Bermane Stiverne could soon meet in a final WBC eliminator, the winner to challenge champ Deontay Wilder. As fans know, former WBC heavyweight champ Stiverne was to have fought Alexander Povetkin this past Saturday, the winner to face Wilder, but Povetkin failed a drugs test and fought late sub Johann Duhaupas instead (winning by violent 6th-round KO).
As exciting, talent-rich and respected as the cruiserweight division – once an all but frowned upon weight class – is today, the champions of the 200-pound division still aim to make the lucrative move up to heavyweight in the future. In fact both Oleksandr Usyk, the reigning WBO champ, and Murat Gassiev, the reigning IBF boss, recently spoke of their desire to become heavyweights, and heavyweight champion, at a later stage in their careers.