What a year boxing is enjoying.
We saw the heavyweight division receive an injection of much-needed excitement when Anthony Joshua stopped Wladimir Klitschko in April. We saw more eyes than ever on the sport in August as one of the greatest of all time, Floyd Mayweather, came out of retirement to take Conor McGregor to task in his ill-fated boxing debut.
And we’ve still got four of the sport’s greatest talents set to clash before the year is out.
If you’d asked a purist what they made of Mayweather vs. McGregor, they would likely scoff and tell you in no uncertain terms that the real biggest fight of 2017 was Gennady Golovkin’s long-awaited clash with Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, which goes down in Las Vegas tonight.
This weekend also saw the confirmation that Vasyl Lomachenko would meet Guillermo Rigondeaux in December in a bout which will close the curtains on a tremendous 12 months for boxing.
Fight fans can’t believe their luck in 2017 but one man who’s not overly impressed by either ‘Canelo’ or GGG is the Irishman who divided the boxing world when he was allowed to swap the Octagon for the ring in order to take on one of the best to ever do it and received a lucrative payday for his troubles.
“‘Canelo’ and Golovkin? I’m not too much of a fan of either of those guys,” McGregor said in the lead-up to last month’s Money Fight.
“I think ‘Canelo’ is a little bit stuck and a little bit flat on his feet. When I look at footage of him, I just see him getting peppered and he’s got no feet underneath him.
“Golovkin came into this camp, I think, badly out of shape. I’m looking at him badly out of shape up in Big Bear and I just see a drained individual. So, although they’re supposedly up there as well, I don’t really think they are.
“But I like the lighter guys. Lomachenko and Rigondeaux is a fight that I’m eager to see.”
