Boxers on Long Layoffs Who We Can't Wait to See Fight Again
As Tom Petty once said, "The waiting is the hardest part."
At least it is for boxing fans who are waiting for their favorite fighters to step back in the ring.
As amateurs or young professionals, boxers will fight every few months or even more frequently depending on how much punishment they take and how long those matches last. Since amateur fights are only three rounds and the pros start off with four-round fights, a busier schedule is physically more possible.
As boxers age, the rounds increase and the motivation to go through the grueling nature of cutting weight and training camp declines, the schedule for elite fighters decreases dramatically. By the time they reach the top, most guys like Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. only fight twice per year at most.
Fighters like Gennady Golovkin and Saul "Canelo" Alvarez who at least attempt to fight three or four times per year are rare and the exception to the rule.
Fatigue, age, desire and necessity are all factors in a boxer deciding to slow down his schedule, but they aren't the only reasons.
For fighters on this list, lawsuits against promoters, scheduling conflicts with trainers and flat out avoiding opponents have also caused them to fight only once or not at all this year.
To qualify for this list, a fighter has to be both near the top of his division—otherwise we wouldn't care when he got back in the ring—and not have a fight scheduled as of now for the fall.
Miguel Cotto
1 of 5
At age 33 Miguel Cotto isn't the oldest elite fighter still active today, but for various reasons his schedule has still been very light since he went 0-2 in 2012.
Since the start of 2013, Cotto has only fought twice and likely won't step into the ring again until next May or June for a possible match with Canelo Alvarez.
Cotto planned to fight in December but dropped those plans over scheduling conflicts with trainer Freddie Roach, who wouldn't have time to focus on him while also training Manny Pacquiao for the welterweight champion's fight against Chris Algieri. Plus, Cotto didn't want to travel to the Philippines to train.
Sure, Cotto could decide to take a "stay busy" fight in February or March as his people have suggested before facing Alvarez in the summer, but why risk an injury or loss before possibly landing the second biggest—to Floyd Mayweather vs. Pacquiao—match that can be made in boxing?
Not worth it.
If the two sides are serious about making the fight, I expect them to schedule it for either the weekend of Cinco de Mayo or around the Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York in June like Cotto's last fight. Scheduling another fight just a few months before wouldn't make any sense.
It's a shame we won't get to see Cotto again for probably at least another six months because he was sensational during his last match. He stopped middleweight champion Sergio Martinez in a dominant performance.
Juan Manuel Marquez
2 of 5
Besides the obvious knockout of longtime rival Manny Pacquiao, the future Hall of Famer put on one of his best performances in recent years with a lopsided 12-round decision against Mike Alvarado.
Coming off a close loss to Timothy Bradley, Juan Manuel Marquez seemed to turn back the clock to defeat Alvarado in what was a title elimination match for the right to fight Pacquiao as his mandatory challenger. Unfortunately for fight fans, Marquez priced himself out of that match, which left us with Chris Algieri.
Without a fifth match against Pacquiao in the immediate future and no other obvious match that needed to and could be made, the now 41-year-old Marquez decided to take the rest of 2014 off before returning early next year.
At his age and considering the wars he's been through, it's hard for fans or media members to blame him for taking some time off, but we're all ready to see him back in the ring.
Once he does return, Bob Arum of Top Rank has talked about rematches with both Bradley and Pacquiao as possibilities for Marquez in 2015, but not much else is out there for him. As long as Al Haymon and Top Rank/HBO refuse to work with each other, most of the top opponents at 140 and 147 pounds are off the table.
That means potential matches with Amir Khan, Keith Thurman, Lucas Matthysse, Adrien Broner, Marcos Maidana, Shawn Porter, Devon Alexander and Robert Guerrero are all dead on arrival. I'd love to see any of them, but until something changes, they have no chance of being made.
With his age and the limited options available to Marquez, he really had no choice but to take a longer break than he normally would. 2015 could be a big year for him if he's able to land rematches with either Pacquiao or Bradley—or even both—but not much else excites me.
I wouldn't mind seeing a matchup with Ruslan Provodnikov, but my gut feeling says that neither man would want that match due to the style the other fighter brings to the ring.
Andre Ward
3 of 5
I know he's a boring fighter a lot of the time, but so is Floyd Mayweather, yet we still throw 60 bucks at the man twice per year.
I've grown tired of the lawsuits against his promoter Dan Goossen—who recently passed away—but Andre Ward is still one of the three or four best pound-for-pound boxers in the world, so I'd like to see him inside the ring instead of next to the ring commentating on HBO.
Ward hasn't fought since November 2013 and has been in only two matches since the start of 2012; he's starting to become known more for his long layoffs than his incredible skill. As Dan Rafael of ESPN would jokingly say, he's been taking too many classes at the Winky Wright School of Boxing Business.
It's a shame Ward has been so inactive because several great potential matchups are awaiting him whenever he decides to stop fighting a court battle he'll likely never win.
Matches against Gennady Golovkin and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., a rematch with Carl Froch or even a move up in weight to face the winner of Sergey Kovalev vs. Bernard Hopkins would all do big numbers on TV.
He's still relatively young at the age of 30, so he still has time to make those big matches, but he's really wasting a lot of his prime by chasing his own tail with these lawsuits.
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Adonis Stevenson
4 of 5
I've grown tired of Adonis Stevenson's act, but that being said he's still a fantastic fighter who usually makes good matches. He's at fault for not having a big match to promote this year by running from multiple big fights, but I still want to see him back in the ring.
2014 has been a really bad year for Stevenson. He ran to another network and promoter to avoid Sergey Kovalev, dragged his feet in making a match with Bernard Hopkins until Hopkins chose someone else and then made unreasonable financial demands in making a match with Jean Pascal.
Does he even want to fight?
Even in his only fight this year—against Andrzej Fonfara—Stevenson was knocked down late and struggled to hang on for the win. Before the decision victory over Fonfara, Stevenson hadn't had one of his bouts go the distance since 2007.
Over his career, 20 of 24 victories have been by knockout; he's an exciting fighter that fans want to see, but he doesn't seem to share that same enthusiasm or willingness to make big fights.
If he gets his act together, bouts against Hopkins or Pascal are still possible for next year, but his priorities seem out of focus.
Mikey Garcia
5 of 5
Here's another guy with a style that can sometimes border on being boring. Unlike Andre Ward, however, Mikey Garcia does use his power more often with 28 knockouts in 34 career fights compared to just 14 in 27 career matches for Ward.
Also like Ward, Garcia's current inactivity—he hasn't fought since January and has nothing scheduled—is due to a lawsuit against his promoter, Top Rank.
I have no idea if Garcia's claims of Top Rank breaking California law are valid—that's for a court to decide—but it is a shame to see a boxer in the middle of his prime waste time in court while he could be making big matches and a lot of money in the ring.
Whenever Garcia does get back, I'd like to see him move up in weight to 135 pounds to face Terence Crawford, before the lightweight champion also makes a move up in weight. If that doesn't work out, a match against Yuriorkis Gamboa would also be attractive.
Follow me on Twitter for more boxing analysis and round by round scoring of big fights: @sackedbybmac
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