By Bob Smith: Last year heralded two new champions added to the pantheon of the ESPN Pound for Pound List – Guillermo Rigondeaux and Gennady Golovkin, and also was the year of the first defeat of Canelo Alvarez in the most anticipated fight of the year, the fight between him and Floyd Mayweather. All three boxing champions have bright futures and unique strengths, but if they face the wrong opponent, may well fall from grace in the next year.
Guillermo Rigondeaux is arguably the best defensive fighter in boxing today, with the possible exception of Floyd Mayweather. His brilliant and masterful fight against Donaire last year made the 2012 Fighter of the Year look ordinary, and largely feckless. He followed this up with a win against the very tough and underrated Joseph Agbeko. He is a master at controlling distance and is an excellent counter-puncher. Yet he is vulnerable when he faces a hard puncher that has little to lose and is going for broke, and he was knocked down on a Donaire left hook under these conditions. The toughest fight for Rigondeaux next year in my opinion is not Donaire again or Abner Mares or Johnny Gonzalez, but Leo Santa Cruz. While it is very difficult to bet against a defensive wizard like Rigondeaux, Santa Cruz has the work rate and tendency to throw blistering combinations inside that could possible prove to be too much for Rigondeaux to handle. While a Santa Cruz victory over Rigondeaux would be an upset, it is an upset that is within the range of possibility if Santa Cruz can land enough flurries on the inside.
A similar potential upset is a fight between James Kirkland and Gennady Golovkin. While Golovkin is very skilled at cutting of the ring and packs cruiserweight or even heavyweight power into a middleweight body, his weakness is a relative lack of speed and a weaker inside game. By contrast, James Kirkland, though he is hit often and often starts out very slow, is a much better inside fighter than Golovkin, and is also a fighter with much faster hands. If Kirkland can find a way to withstand a round or two of Golovkin’s blows and can find a way to get on the inside, he can possibly turn the tenor of the fight to his advantage if he constantly moves forward and does good work on the inside, whether this inside work occurs in the center of the ring or with Golovkin on the ropes. While I of course favor Golovkin in this fight, he must use his boxing skill and skill at controlling the distance and not permit the quicker and still hard punching Kirkland to set the tone of the fight as an ugly fight on the inside. I view Kirkland because of his style as a greater potential challenge to Golovkin than Sturm, Murray, Geale, or Quillin. This would be all the more true if Golovkin fought Kirkland at 154 pounds. And if this fight does take place, it will provide a preview of how Golovkin would handle Ward’s style, as Ward is a much better fighter than Golovkin on the inside, and has much better defense than either Golovkin or Kirkland.
The third potential upset is Angulo over Canelo. Unlike the other two fights that are speculative, this fight will actually take place. While Canelo has obvious strengths – greater speed, boxing IQ, combinations and accuracy, and defense, Angulo and his power and style should not be underestimated. He has only three losses on his record – against Cintron, when he was not 100% and when Cintron fought the fight of his life; a slugfest with James Kirkland in which he knocked Kirkland down in the first 30 seconds; and his most recent fight with Lara in which he knocked down Lara multiple times despite Lara being a more slick and skilled fighter than Canelo, though of course he does lack the power of Canelo. While Canelo will obviously be favored to win and Angulo’s style lambasted as Neanderthal by many boxing commentators before the fight, it might well be the case that Angulo walks through Canelo’s accurate combinations and hurts him and even knocks him down a few times and wins the fight on sheer aggression and punching power.
So, while Rigondeaux and Golovkin and Saul Alvarez are all great champions with bright futures ahead of them, no boxer is invulnerable and boxers with styles that inadvertently expose their weaknesses could well beat them under the right conditions.
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