British Boxing: Is the scene booming or are we just that step below the world elite

By Boxing News - 10/09/2013 - Comments

barker100By Dean Bain: British boxing seems to be going through a rich patch at the moment with lots of good young fighters coming through along with 5 current world champions, there are also many fighters on the verge of a world title fight.

The 2012 Olympics were held in the UK and TeamGB came out on top of the boxing rankings. 3 gold medals, 1 silver and a bronze were claimed. From the medal winners Anthony Joshua, Luke Campbell and Anthony Ogogo have turned pro and look to have very bright future ahead of them. Luke Campbell for me looks the pick of the bunch and in his 2 pro fights so far has put in a performance that looked beyond his years. He has good movement, quick and can pack a punch too. With 2 pro fights and two KO within the first 2 minutes of the first round its clear to see he needs to move on to the next level of fighters to test himself. Hopefully Matchroom sports can keep him busy and gradually improve the quality of opponent

Carl Froch, Ricky Burns, Scott Quigg, Darren Barker and Jamie McDonnell are the world Champions from the UK. How many of that 5 are world class though? Carl Froch is clearly world class, you will not find many fighters going around who has fought the quality of fighters that he has over his career. The only fighter in the super middleweight division who has more quality is Andre Ward but the only problem with Ward is he does not generate any money. Froch and Ward is the biggest fight in the division but Froch is probably getting the same money fighting George Groves, maybe even more. Groves is a tough fight for Froch but I cant help but feel its too soon, I think Froch will have too much for Groves at this point in his career.

Ricky Burns has been the WBO Lightweight champion, Ricky’s last 9 fights have been world title fights and during this time held the Super featherweight title as well. Is he world class though? I think he is a very underrated fighter, yes I do think he should have lost his last 2 fights but at the end of the day he didn’t and is still the champion. I think he belongs with the top 5 in the division and really hope he overcomes his recent injury, Crawford would be next up and that really is a 50/50 fight no matter what the Americans want to believe. Crawford is a good fighter but has he fought the quality that Burns has? The answer is NO, This fight will be in Scotland and I would fancy Burns in this one. I’d then want to see him move on to Beltran, For me even being Scottish and a Burns fan I think this should be in the US. It would be the right thing to do but that means nothing, money will decide and that means it will take place in Scotland again. If Burns is not ready to fight come end of February then Beltran and Crawford should fight for the interim belt with the winner fighting Burns in the summer.

Scott Quigg is a good fighter but he did struggle against his Cuban opponent last Saturday and this may be the signs of things to come. The biggest fight out there for him at the moment is Frampton, this would be a quality fight and would sell out any arena in the UK. I do think Quigg won his fight that was given as a draw but I personally thought he would have controlled the fight a lot more than he did and maybe have forced a late stoppage. He was given the belt as it was vacant but he will have to put in a lot better performances than he did last weekend to prove he deserves it. If the Frampton fight doesn’t come off I would like to see him fight Cristian Mijares, he is a top 5 contender and would show us where Quigg is before going for the big guns in the division

You will not get anyone with more heart than Darren Barker, he won the IBF title from Geale with a points win back in August and was must certainly deserved. Only man to beat him so far who Martinez in a 11th round stoppage, next up is Felix Sturm. A man well known in the UK after his fights with Martin Murray and Matthew Macklin. Barker has a great chance in this fight, Sturm is getting on a bit in years and this is starting to show with his skills in the ring. Murray should have got the decision against him and Sturm has lost twice since then, 1 later given as a no contest. If Barker comes through this I think he should settle the differences within the UK fighters, a fight against Murray would be a cracker and a possible fight of the year

Jamie McDonnell is not the most popular fighter within the UK and probably the least likely out of the 5 champions to have won a world title. You have to give him the credit though as he took the opportunity given and beat Ceja on points, Ceja just makes it into the top 20 ranked bantamweight’s though and I feel that there will be a lot harder nights ahead for McDonnell. I think people like Yamanaka would expose McDonnell with his limited skill set

There are also many fighters in the UK due a title fight or in the picture and these are the following boxers in my opinion. David Haye, Tyson Fury, Ola Afolabi, Nathan Cleverly, Tony Bellew, George Groves, James Degale, Marin Murray, Brian Rose, Amir Khan, Kell Brook and Carl Frampton. That’s 12 fighters with genuine chances of competing and many winning a world title. Main ones for me to look out for would be Martin Murray, Amir Khan, Kell Brook and Carl Frampton. All great fighters and most likely to win a world title, the others are good fighters but I just feel there are better fighters than them in their weight classes.

We then have the up and coming fighters and there are a few going around that I would love to see more of and feel they could make a big impact. These fighters are Khalid Yafai, Paul Butler, Kid Galahad, Billy Joe Saunders, Chris Eubank JR, Callum Smith and of course the Olympians meantioned earlier

There are so many names mentioned with plenty of talent and the chance to add to the 5 world titles already held in the UK. Boxing in the UK cannot be compared to the US, the US is a huge country but the UK scene is doing fine and I predict to only get better in the next few years. There are more and more fights happening in arenas when if you just look back over last 5 years it was more hall shows, promoters are putting unbeaten fighters against each other and there is only one winner there, US the fans

Look forward to all the feedback on my first article and will try respond to any feedback

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