Boxers in Desperate Need of a Bounce-Back Performance

More emphasis is put on winning individual matches in boxing than any single game or match in any other sport.

In Major League Baseball, even the best teams lose around 50 to 60 games per season, while in the NBA that number is about 20. Even in the NFL, which has a much shorter season than baseball or basketball, the Super Bowl champion is usually a team that has lost at least three or four games.

Of course, those are team sports, so the circumstances are a little different, but even compared to other individual sports like tennis, golf or auto racing, there is a higher level of success required to be considered among the elite in boxing.

The attitude in other sports is often something like "you'll get them next time" or "it was only one game," but boxing is much different.

If an athlete in those three individual sports I just mentioned wins half of the events during the season, he has had an amazing year; winning half of the time in boxing makes you a bum.

Not only is the urgency and importance of winning dialed up in boxing, but all of that pressure is pushed on to just one or two matches a year for most elite boxers.

With matches for fighters coming only a couple of times per year instead of multiple times per week, the attention and scrutiny over the results are intensified greatly.

In boxing, the opinion and perception of the fans and media can turn quickly and harshly. One day you're a can't-miss prospect or a top champion, and then you wake up the next day after a loss to find out that you've suddenly become overrated or washed up.

Losing just a single match can be devastating to a promising career, so bouncing back from a defeat in an impressive manner is key to reviving momentum.

Reversing the tide and getting momentum back on your side can be very difficult but not impossible if you can give the fans and media something more memorable, dramatic or impressive to erase and replace the last image of you after a loss.

The boxers on this list will be attempting to do just that in the near future.

Mike Alvarado

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Last Fight: Unanimous-decision loss to Juan Manuel Marquez.

Not only was his decision loss unanimous, but he got blown out, with scores of 119-108, 117-109, 117-109 being turned in for his match against the much older Juan Manuel Marquez.

Unfortunately for Mike Alvarado, his recent skid isn't just one loss; he has three losses out of his last four fights. Included in those three losses besides the lopsided defeat to Marquez were TKO stoppages at the hands of Brandon Rios and Ruslan Provodnikov.

Alvarado did avenge the loss to Rios shortly after their first fight, but the damage to his reputation has still been massive; he came into the first Rios fight with a 33-0 record. A rubber match against Rios is rumored to be up next for Alvarado, according to The Ring; he desperately needs that win.

It will take more than just one big win to resurrect his career since Rios is also at a similar crossroads, but another loss could possibly end Alvarado's career.

Daniel Geale

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Last Fight: Third-round knockout loss to Gennady Golovkin.

Before last July, Daniel Geale had never been knocked out, and even his two previous defeats were both by close split decisions; then the semi-truck that some call Gennady Golovkin flattened him quickly at Madison Square Garden.

Geale was and is still a top-10 middleweight, but Golovkin made him look like a washed-up journeyman. Obviously, Golovkin has done that to several other talented and accomplished boxers, so Geale was not unique in how thoroughly he got destroyed, but he still needs a big bounce-back victory.

With the loss, Geale put himself in a very distant and clear second tier in the middleweight division behind both Miguel Cotto and Golovkin for 160-pound supremacy. Geale needs an impressive victory in his next fight—against Jarrod Fletcher—to prove he still belongs in the conversation for title shots.

Shawn Porter

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Last Fight: Clear decision loss—though it was officially just a 2-1 majority decision—to Kell Brook in his second defense of the IBF welterweight title.

Former welterweight titleholder Shawn Porter was on an unbelievable rise up the division ranks with wins over two very accomplished fighters—Devon Alexander and Paulie Malignaggi—over the course of just five months, which included him capturing and successfully defending the belt.

Then all that momentum came to a screeching halt as he was dismantled by a much better pure boxer in Brook.

Perhaps worse than just losing the belt was that the defeat brought up reasonable questions about Porter's style and skill in the ring and whether losses against other highly skilled and athletic pure boxers would continue.

For most of the match, Porter just charged toward Brook in an effort to get inside, but the awkwardness and unique nature of his offensive attack that had been an advantage for him previously left him wide open for counters. Porter seemingly made no adjustments or had a clear game plan for when he did get inside.

Whenever Porter fights again, he has to prove he's more than just an awkward brawler and that he's capable of winning a technical boxing match when necessary.

Lucian Bute

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Last Fight: Awful performance during a lopsided decision loss to Jean Pascal.

In a match that took entirely too long to make, Lucian Bute put forth arguably the worst performance of his career in one of the biggest fights of his career against a fellow Canadian star.

Bute doesn't factor into the major championship picture right now in his division, but he did just sign with legendary trainer Freddie Roach. I'm not sure what Bute has left in the tank, but if anyone can get the most out of whatever is left, it's definitely Roach, who recently turned around Miguel Cotto's career.