Boxers Who Will Make the Most Buzz in 2015
Whether we like it or not, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao are destined to be the two most talked about boxers in 2015. If, through some miraculous development, they actually end up signing a contract to get in the ring, all the endless talk about them will actually be worthwhile.
But even if they don't end up fighting—and at this point, I'm pretty sure they won't—they are still going to be the two fighters ruling the search engine results.
Rising Mexican superstar Saul Alvarez and Puerto Rican legend Miguel Cotto will also be on every fan's lips, at least for the first part of the year. But in their case for all the right reasons. Their anticipated showdown on May 2 could set records.
It's still not officially set, as Cotto has to finish negotiations, but it looks inevitable.
Sergey Kovalev, Gennady Golovkin and Terence Crawford are other fighters everybody will be talking about in 2015. After a 2014 marred by too many mismatches and rotten decisions, there's reason to be hopeful that next year will be as great for boxing as 2012 and 2013 were.
Fighters Who Could End Up Being on This List If Things Fall into Place
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It's finally coming to North America: a heavyweight title fight with two big-punching heavyweight fighters who are based from North America and have growing fanbases there. If either Bermane Stiverne or Deontay Wilder blows out the other when they clash for Stiverne's WBC belt in January, fans will be yelling to see him fight a true heavyweight title fight against Wladimir Klitschko.
It seems pretty likely that Carl Froch and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. are going to fight next year. That has the ingredients to be a highly entertaining fight. I expect the Brit would record his third straight victory over a much young contender.
If Danny Garcia, Adrien Broner, Lucas Matthysse or Mikey Garcia get the right fights next year, they could certainly create plenty of buzz.
10. Keith Thurman
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Keith Thurman heard the unexpected sound of boos earlier this month when he failed to ignite his usually explosive offense en route to defeating Leonard Bundu by wide margins on the cards. Bundu fought with a tricky, idiosyncratic style, and he seemed primarily interested in avoiding Thurman's heavy punches. The European champion certainly did very little in the way of trying to win the fight.
It was a bit unfair for fans to boo the fight, but the expectations that have grown up around Thurman are pretty big by this point. He's been one of the most exciting fighters to emerge in recent years.
Ironically, Thurman's "struggles" with Bundu could end up making it easier for him to finally get a big fight. Thurman is knocking on the door in the sport's most competitive weight class, so expect to hear a lot about him in 2015.
9. Nicholas Walters
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The featherweight division will enter 2015 as one of the sport's hottest, and Nicholas "The Axe Man" Walters is a big part of the reason why. Walters entered 2014 carrying a WBA, make-pretend "regular" belt, an undefeated record and a reputation for punching power.
He will end 2014 as a Fighter of the Year finalist on a lot of ballots.
Walters knocked out two guys who will likely be enshrined in the Hall of Fame some day. Vic Darchinyan's best days were at 115 pounds, to be sure, but Walter's knocking him out was a smaller weight class equivalent of Danny Garcia knocking out Erik Morales in 2012.
It's a resume line that has to be contextualized but is still eye-catching when it comes from an emerging young fighter.
Thurman followed that up by pounding Nonito Donaire later in the year. Going into the fight, there was talk Donaire might jump from featherweight to 130 or even 135 pounds. The "Axe Man" was Donaire's reality check.
So going into next year, Walters will be an interesting fighter to inject into all kinds of potential fights for stars between 122 and 135 pounds.
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8. Vasyl Lomachenko
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There's a chance I've got Vasyl Lomachenko too low on this list. I can see things lining up for the Ukrainian to ascend to near the top of the pound-for-pound rankings by the end of 2015.
But he'd have to get a number of high-profile fights against other major stars to do that. It's more likely that he will continue to solidify his growing legend, which is already on the rise, just four fights into his career.
Lomachenko made a brave bid to capture the WBO featherweight belt from Orlando Salido earlier this year in just his second professional fight. Salido relinquished the title on the scales and came into the showdown with a huge weight advantage.
Lomachenko struggled early in the fight to adjust to Salido's "veteran" style, but by the end of it, he was in the driver's seat. He lost a split decision but still impressed.
Lomachenko took the vacant WBO belt in his next fight, handling undefeated speedster Gary Russell Jr. Lomachenko looked spectacular in November, facing a badly overmatched opponent on the Manny Pacquiao pay-per-view card.
I would caution against making too much out of the way Lomachenko dominated Chonlatarn Piriyapinyo in that fight. But it's still impossible not to get excited about his potential. Fans will be talking about him a lot in 2015.
7. Terence Crawford
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Terence Crawford looked like a very promising young fighter coming into 2014. In 2015, expect to hear people talking about him as an emerging superstar.
Last March, Crawford went to Scotland and challenged Ricky Burns for the WBO lightweight crown. Crawford handled the champion in front of his own hometown, coming away with the belt.
In June, Crawford took on fellow unbeaten Yuriorkis Gamboa. Gamboa is an explosive athlete with a deep amateur background and was viewed as a pound-for-pound talent by many. Crawford survived tough early rounds and pounded Gamboa, dropping him multiple times and stopping him in Round 9.
Crawford capped off the year with a shutout of tough veteran Raymundo Beltran. Beltran was a hungry, experienced professional and could have been a trap fight for a young rising star in Crawford's position. But Crawford handled his business with style.
There are a lot of good matchups for Crawford either with fighters moving up from featherweight and superfeather or if Crawford moves up to super lightweight or welterweight. He'll be in a lot of boxing discussions in the year ahead.
6. Sergey Kovalev
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Sergey Kovalev will end 2014 extremely close to doing something that has become sadly rare in the sport. By beating Bernard Hopkins last October he unified three of four alphabet soup world titles. With a win over WBC and lineal champion Adonis Stevenson, Kovalev could become a true, undisputed world champion.
After building a fanbase with his sensational knockouts, Kovalev proved he has tremendous all-around boxing talent against the crafty Hopkins. His combination of power and intelligence is rare.
If Stevenson agrees to face Kovalev, it will be one of the year's most anticipated fights. If Stevenson neglects to make the fight, fans will spend the year talking about how Stevenson is ducking "Krusher."
Either way, they will be talking about Kovalev.
5. Gennady Golovkin
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Gennady Golovkin has become such a presence in the sport this year that he will be talked about a lot, even in connection to fights he is not involved in. Miguel Cotto vs. Saul Alvarez could set records for sales, but in the background of that fight, everybody will be asking whether the winner will have the nerve to take on GGG.
Cotto and Alvarez will be fighting for the lineal middleweight title as well as the WBC belt. But to most fans, Golovkin is obviously the top dog at 160 pounds. The WBA champion is riding an 18-fight KO streak and has knocked out 28 of 31 in his career.
Fans who dismiss Golovkin's record because "he never fought anybody" are being intellectually lazy. A close look at Golovkin's resume shows him consistently starching world-class fighters with no prior history of getting starched.
Golovkin has a disarming smile to go with his dangerous punching power. The former Olympic silver medalist has boxing skill to fall back on if he ever needs it. He's the type of star the sport has been waiting for, and the buzz around him will continue to grow in 2015.
4. Miguel Cotto
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Last June, Miguel Cotto became the first four-division world champion in Puerto Rican boxing history, when he stopped WBC and lineal middleweight champion Sergio Martinez by TKO. Considering the rich history of Puerto Rican pugilism, Cotto is now standing alone above some pretty special all-time greats.
I think that Cotto's win says as much about Martinez's decline as it does about Cotto's resurgence. But I'm also a longtime Cotto fan and want to give credit where it is due. Against a bigger, better athlete, Cotto relied on the "sweet science" to administer a trashing to one of the better pound-for-pound stars of recent years.
It looks inevitable at this point that Cotto will face rising Mexican star Saul Alvarez in May. Cotto-Alvarez has been a fight fans have speculated about for the past few years. Now that Cotto has captured the middleweight crown, the hype around that showdown will be higher than ever.
Cotto's been one of the biggest stars in this sport for much of this century. That won't change as 2015 gets underway.
3. Saul Alvarez
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In prizefighting more than any other sport, tickets are sold on the personas of the competitors. The greatest of the great all time have been iconic, larger-than-life figures.
It's too soon to tell if Canelo Alvarez is one of those kind of fighters. He's edged out a couple of very good fighters in close fights where he looked less than perfect. He was shut out on any sensible card against Floyd Mayweather.
But he's fought at a very high level for a star of such a young age. And in 2015 it looks almost certain he will face one of the biggest stars of the last generation of prizefighters, Miguel Cotto.
Whether Alvarez ever enters the company of the best of all time, he is one of the very biggest draws in the world right now. And he's willing to fight very good fighters. If he beats Cotto, which he has a good chance of doing, I am pretty sure he will fight Gennady Golovkin.
Alvarez was looking to fight Paul Williams before Williams' motorcycle accident, when the lanky southpaw was viewed as his toughest possible fight. He fought Trout when the speculation was that Golden Boy would protect him from Trout.
Canelo's also fought and beat Erislandy Lara, when Lara was the toughest man available for him. I thought Lara earned the decision in that fight, but Alvarez looked better than he had against Trout or Mayweather.
Alvarez is at the age where he can still get better and improve on his natural gifts. He seems to be the type of fighter who puts in the time to do so, judging from the way he improves.
He's also in position to get any fight he is interested in making, and he seems to be very willing to make the fights he believes the fans want to see. So he'll be one of the most talked about fighters in the sport all year long.
2. Manny Pacquiao
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It's kind of sad that after so many years the fight that still generates by far the most buzz in terms of social media pontificating is Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather, the great fight that never was.
This would have been a great matchup in 2009, 2010 or 2011. In 2012, I officially stopped believing it could ever happen. Ever since Marquez knocked Pacquiao out, I've had a lot less interest in seeing it happen.
If they finally make the fight in 2015, it will still be the most talked about fight in many, many years. It will be great for people who write about boxing for any part of their income.
I'll watch it, even be engrossed by the time it finally takes place. I'll expect Mayweather to win a fairly wide decision, exciting in an academic way to the degree that Pacquiao handling Bradley in the second fight was exciting.
Even if the fight doesn't happen, people look determined to avoid shutting up about it. And even if Pacquiao ends up fighting Jessie Vargas, which seems pretty likely, he'll be one of the year's most talked about fighters.
1. Floyd Mayweather
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'Tis the season when online boxing chatter picks up rumors that, after all this time, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao are finally going to fight. They are the two biggest stars in the world, and people have wanted to pay them tens of millions of dollars each to fight for years now.
But somehow, they still haven't fought.
But as 2014 ends, Pacquiao has suddenly become more outspoken about his desire to make this fight happen. Mayweather recently responded by giving an interview to Steve Farhood on the Erislandy Lara-Ishe Smith broadcast about how he really wanted to fight Pacquiao.
So why not be optimistic and assume this will really be the year? God bless us, everyone, I suppose, if it happens.
But I'm guessing that the next step in all of this will be a confusing cross-promotional entanglement in which Mayweather and Pacquiao can't happen on May 2 because Canelo Alvarez and Miguel Cotto are supposed to happen that weekend.
And so, as a result, Pacquiao and Mayweather won't be able to happen at all, according to one side or the other or both.
But even if Mayweather ends up fighting Amir Khan next, which seems as inevitable as Jon Snow continuing to rise on Game of Thrones, Mayweather will be the most talked about and written about boxer in the sport in 2015.
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