By Niall Doran
What a year for boxing just gone was. 2013 gave us some genuinely competitive match ups (at least on paper before hand) between some of the world’s very best professional fighters.
From Mayweather v Canelo, to Donaire v Rigondeaux, to Froch v Kessler and many more. I think we can look back on 2013 as a real turning point of a year in boxing where we saw probably for the first time in a long time a real willingness from the powers that be to put on fights that fans really want to actually see.
I think this is down to the fact they simply have to now due to the competitiveness of the global combat sports market as a whole and no longer will the fans be fed champion vs miss match type opponents or cards that have no depth to them past the main event.
I believe we are now in a really good place as a sport globally and see the momentum of 2013 being built upon for many years to come and maybe, just maybe, boxing will get back to the massive sport on the back pages it once was before.
On that note, here’s a list of 10 potential boxing matches in 2014 I’d like to see come to fruition – feel free as always to drop in some of your own suggestions!
- Floyd Mayweather vs Manny Pacquiao (If there really is a boxing God out there maybe he’ll make this one finally happen, all be it years after it should have!)
- Mike Perez vs Wladimir Klitschko(For me Perez has been under the radar for years and I think he gives Wlad heaps of problems if he comes to fight in shape)
- Gennady Golovkin vs Peter Quillin/Sergio Martinez (GGG was on fire last year but I think it’s time in 2014 we see him in a unification with one of these two)
- Carl Froch vs George Groves Rematch (I think most people agree that the fight was stopped too early, hopefully Groves gets a rematch)
- Andy Lee vs Matthew Macklin (With rumours floating about for this one between these two exciting middleweights, it’s an Irish boxing fans dream!)
- Adonis Stevenson vs Sergey Kovalev (Seeing these two concussive light- heavyweights go at it would be simply epic)
- Scott Quigg vs Carl Frampton (Probably unlikely until at least later in the year, but would love to see this at some point in 2014)
- Guillermo Rigondeaux vs Leo Santa Cruz (A tasty potential unification bout in the super bantamweight division)
- Danny Garcia vs Ruslan Providnikov (These two have explosive styles that could really gel and make for a good old fashioned light-welterweight ding dong in 2014)
- Miguel Cotto vs Canelo Alvarez (Has all the makings of a Mexican/Puerto Rican classic should this Light-Middleweight bout get made in 2014)
The post Happy New Year! 10 Potential Boxing Matches in 2014 to look forward to appeared first on %%Boxing News and Views/%%.
