The Biggest Things to Look Forward to in Boxing in 2015
If you are a hardcore boxing fan, you're going to find things to look forward to every month. You're likely to look forward to Friday Night Fights every week as the perfect way to end the work grind. You'll look forward to the premium cable cards, and at the end of every year, there will be moments you remember with fondness.
But 2015 already has the potential to be a huge year in the history of the sport. And I'm not referring to the potential of Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao finally getting made.
Whether or not that fight happens, this looks like a year when boxing has the potential to move closer to the mainstream than it has been in years. At the very least, for the hardcore fans, 2015 has the potential to be one of the greatest years in decades.
5. Andre Ward's Return to Action
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Between 2009 and 2012, Andre Ward cleaned out the super middleweight division and established himself as one of the elite boxers in the sport. After stopping light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson in September 2012, he moved into second place on the majority of pound-for-pound lists.
But he's been woefully inactive since that fight, competing just once in November 2013, against the unheralded Edwin Rodriguez. He didn't fight at all in 2014.
It's never good for the sport when a 30-year-old star of Ward's caliber is out of action. Fortunately, he signed a new contract in early January with Jay Z's Roc Nation. Hopefully, he'll be making up for lost time in 2015.
4. The Emergence of New Potential Superstars
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Endless speculation over whether Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao will ever fight each other has dominated the attention of boxing fans for most of the Obama administration's tenure in office. That hasn't exactly changed so far in early 2015.
What has changed is the sudden emergence on the scene of a slew of new potential superstars. These are talented and exciting fighters who have the ability to carry the sport with their action in the ring rather than their negotiation drama outside of it.
At the head of this list, I would place three fighters: Gennady Golovkin, Sergey Kovalev and Terence Crawford. The undefeated WBA middleweight champion, Golovkin is riding a knockout streak of 18 straight fights. He's the most avoided fighter in the sport, but it's become an event every time he competes, no matter who he is facing.
Kovalev is another knockout machine from the former Soviet Bloc, but last October he turned in a terrific strategic boxing performance against Bernard Hopkins to unify three of four belts at light heavyweight.
Crawford was a leading Fighter of the Year candidate, going 3-0 and capturing the WBO lightweight title. His June stoppage of previously unbeaten Yuriorkis Gamboa was perhaps the top performance of the year.
Nicholas Walters, who knocked out future Hall of Famers Vic Darchinyan and Nonito Donaire last year, also deserves a mention here. Twins Jermell and Jermall Charlo are set to take over the ultracompetitive junior middleweight division.
And I'm not about the jump off the Keith Thurman bandwagon, simply because he "only" managed to shut out Leonard Bundu 120-107 on all three cards in his final fight of 2014.
But perhaps the surest bet of the bunch among the emerging fighters is 21-year-old Naoya Inoue of Japan. With less than 10 fights, he's already collected world titles in two divisions, both by stoppage. He capped off 2014 by knocking out veteran super flyweight champion Omar Narvaez, a feat the explosive Donaire was unable to achieve in 2011.
3. Lucas Matthysse vs. Ruslan Provodnikov
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I still haven't seen an official announcement for this fight, but it's been posted on Boxrec for more than a week now. So I'm going to adopt an optimistic attitude and include it on this list. A fight between Lucas Matthysse and Ruslan Provodnikov clearly deserves its own entry.
This fight is a can't-miss affair. It's sure to be a great fight and has the potential to be one of those wars that fans continue to talk about for decades.
This will be the irresistible force versus the unmovable object. Matthysse is an outstanding offensive fighter, throwing a high volume of heavy shots while continually moving into ideal position to throw the next bunch.
Provodnikov is a slab of granite, as rugged as the Siberian winters that forged him. Neither of these two warriors is particularly concerned with the finer points of defense or known for moving backward.
Don't miss this one. It will be the kind of fight you will want to tell your grandchildren about.
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2. The Return of a Pulse to the Heavyweight Division
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Over the years, the popularity of boxing has largely risen and fallen with the status of the heavyweight title. In earlier eras, one or more dominant champions and a host of solid contenders have been a consistent recipe for keeping boxing relevant to the average sports fan.
I'm hardly prepared to declare the beginning of a new golden age for the big men. But as 2015 gets underway, it's obvious that the heavyweight division is more interesting than it has been in years.
In January, undefeated knockout artist Deontay Wilder made a long anticipated step up in competition and acquitted himself well, earning the WBC belt by one-sided decision over Bermane Stiverne. For now, at least, a piece of the heavyweight crown has returned to the United States.
In April, the true heavyweight champion, Wladimir Klitschko, defends his crown against undefeated American contender Bryant Jennings in Madison Square Garden. The Garden has long been known as the Mecca of Boxing and has hosted some of history's most legendary heavyweight scraps.
We are still a long way from the 1970s, or even the 1990s, when multiple Hall of Famers filled the division. But the action among the big men is looking more compelling than it has in years, and that has to be good for boxing.
1. Boxing's Return to Network Television
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For fans from the millennial generation, it's probably hard to imagine the status boxing once had. It was a mainstream sport and a fixture on broadcast television. I've had 20-something fans look at me in envious disbelief when I tell them that I watched legends like Marvin Hagler, Ray Leonard and Larry Holmes on network television as a kid.
In recent decades, boxing has flourished purely as a niche attraction on cable television. Boxing hasn't gone anywhere, but to find it, you've had to be a fan who knew where to search.
When I was growing up, you could end up being a fan by accident, just by flipping through the three available channels on a weekend afternoon.
But in January, power broker Al Haymon announced a deal with NBC to finally return boxing to where it belongs on network television. Young stars like Danny Garcia, Keith Thurman and Adrien Broner will have exciting opportunities to expand the sport's audience.
In an appropriate move, some of the broadcasts will even feature commentary from Leonard, the biggest star of boxing's last golden age.
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