Most Exciting Fighters Today

By Angel Flowers: Most Exciting Boxers to Watch

Boxers have many different styles that the boxing public appreciate. There are all action pressure fighters like James Kirkland, defensive minded fighters like Floyd Mayweather, fighters with incredible hand speed like Amir Khan, technical boxers like Wladimir Klitschko or one punch knockout fighters like Deontay Wilder. While many people are a master of their respective styles a lot of styles are meant for boxing purist, this article is for the casual fans.

People who do not really watch boxing on the regular but will tune in for a big fight maybe. While many of us like to see Lt. Heavyweight Champion Andre Ward fight, his style is more for purist. It was nice seeing him taking Sergey Kovalev into deep water for many diehard fans, but for the casual fan they did not see what they were looking for. Below is a list of fighters the average fan would not turn off the T.V. for if they were fight. This is my list composed only of fighters who have fought in the last year or so.

Pressure Fighters

The first fighter is Gennady Golovkin. While Golovkin lacks one punch knockout power of someone like Saul Alvarez, Golovkin is not hard to find inside a boxing ring. Other than his fight with David Lemieux, Golovkin does not really box, jab or retreat. Golovkin is entirely in your face using the jab just as a set up for his real weapon, big power shots which he throws practically more than anyone else. Even critics of Golovkin cannot say they saw a boring Golovkin fight for which he was reason. The fight with Kell Brook although not really fair considering the weight class between the two was exciting. The fight with Curtis Stevens was exciting. In fact, the only fight people can arguably say was not exciting was his last fight with Daniel Jacobs, but this is more a knock on Jacobs since Golovkin was in his face all night. While Golovkin’s pay per view numbers are not good, I don’t believe no one reading my words will turn off a new Golovkin fight if it on T.V. Pressure fighters like Golovkin is what many people consider real boxing, no slick defense, no fancy footwork, just two men willing to stay toe to toe, something Golovkin does better than anyone. The fact that he received this spot over Shawn Porter, Sergey Kovalev, Ruslan Prodvodnikov should serve as notice what the general public thinks of his fighting style.

One Hit Knock Out

Among all the one hit knockout fighters, the one fans love to see is Saul Alvarez. As the most popular fighter on the planet, scores of people turn in to watch his performances. Alvarez can box but what sets him apart is the fact that he has one punch knockout power, many of his opponents do not get a chance to stumble around the ring hurt, in one instance they are in decent shape, in the next they are done. We saw this with Amir Khan and we saw this with James Kirkland. Even fighters with good chins like Liam Smith could not get away from the heavy handed pride of Mexico. While there are many other OHKO artist out there, Deontay Wilder amongst them, Canelo takes this spot.

Technical Fighters

Vasyl Lomachenko has to take this spot. This is someone who has been going up in weight class and is the sole person on this list that has not one cab driver on his resume. He picked apart Nicholas Walters, beat Jason Sosa and even has Gary Russell Jr. on his resume. Lomachenko has called out another feared boxer in Mikey Garcia setting up an exciting showdown should Garcia take the fight. At 8-1, Lomachenko is the type of fighter that could crossover, instead of just fighting whoever is put in front of him by the boxing councils he actively goes out and looks for the hard fights. Among technical fighters Lomachenko is an easy pick, beating such fighters like Keith Thurman, Terrence Crawford and Errol Spence.

Fast fighters

There are many fighters out there with really fast hand speed, Amir Khan is one, Adrien Broner is another. However, Manny Pacquiao despite his age is the boxer that deserves this spot. When Pacquiao fights, people are expecting blistering hand speed from both hands followed by an amazing performance. So what he has not knocked anyone out in a while, that was a younger Pacquiao fighting at a lower weight class. The current version of Pacquiao beat a prime Jessie Vargas for the title. That PPV despite not being picked up by any of the major networks almost doubled the numbers of both of Golovkin’s PPV’s combined. If Manny Pacquiao is fighting on free TV no one turns off the channel. If he is fighting on HBO, no one turns the channel and if he is fighting on PPV people will buy it. In the American PPV market, the biggest around his last two fights were only beaten by Alvarez and that was barely.

Defensive Minded fighters

Although this may be controversial, the casual fan does not want to see a defensive genius any more than they want to see a pitching duel in baseball. While fighters like Floyd Mayweather brought in huge numbers, it was because Mayweather was a loud mouth who more than half of the people buying his PPV’s bought it to see him defeated. Mayweather was a showman, I do not think there will be another fighter like Mayweather, who started off as a combination technical fighter with very fast hands before settling into his more defensive minded presence. Anyone not believing me only has to look at Erislandy Lara or Guillermo Rigondeaux. Both are defensive geniuses and have proven their worth, Lara against Alvarez and Rigondeaux against Nonito Donaire. Other than Mayweather can anyone name a defensive minded fighter that people actually paid to see? Pernell Whitaker is looked at fondly but look at his PPV record, you can argue it was because of his opponents like Oscar De La Hoya and Felix Trinidad that the casual fan tuned in to watch at all.