By Gerardo Granados: The core of the boxing hall of fame or the personal top ten all time greats list are the bad to the bone prizefighters, call them greats or legends, it’s your choice. There are sublime pure boxers that are so rare that you will enjoy until your memory leaves them behind. But there are some mean, tough and relentless sons of boxing that you can not ever forget. Since the first time you saw they fight to the last bout that they engaged you knew that these men step into the ring with a killer instinct and always try to demolish their opponent.
These are a few of the men that have made boxing so great, regardless their record they are only some of the most feared, the meanest and the bravest: Sonny Liston – Jeff Fenech – Mike Tyson – Nigel Benn – Julio Cesar Chavez – Archie Moore – Thomas Hearns – Edwin Valero – Marvin Hagler – George Foreman – Jake LaMotta – Kostya Tszyu – Edwin Rosario – Joe Louis – Jack Dempsey – Alexis Arguello – Rosendo Alvarez – Rocky Marciano – Carlos Monzon – Roy Jones Jr – Mike McCallum – Joe Frazier – Roberto Duran – Sam Langford – Azumah Nelson – Bob Fitszimmons – Juan Manuel Marquez – Wladimir Klitschko – John Mugabi – Jose Napoles – Ricky Hatton – Vinny Pazienza – Hector Camacho – Jorge Paez – Bernard Hopkins – Sugar Ray Robinson – Jorge Arce – George Chuvalo – Max Baer….
No need to say that these are no model citizens, perhaps some of them had trouble with the law or party out loud. But what would we have done without them, I bet boxing would not be as it is. Which was your impression when you saw Duran for the first time, boy the charisma these mate still has, the way he looked and the way he fought hooked many to boxing ever since; Iron Mike in his early years, you could tell right away he was bad to the bone. Hatton still has it isn’t he; Wladimir looks like a nice guy outside the ring but inside it’s a different story. The ones that got the chance the see LaMotta or Dempsey were lucky. All of these fighters have achieved big things, and there is no doubt that these fighters are the ones that keep boxing alive and are responsible for the greatness of the sport.
Nowadays professional boxing has some issues that need to be fixed, but this is not new. Boxing as a sport will never die neither professional boxing but it is quickly becoming a show than a real competition, blame it on promoters (you name the worst), boxing organizations or to the main television networks, the revenues are really big so forget about any chances to improve the quality of title fights and competition; PPV will never go away. It´s sad that the hard core boxing fans are the only ones who are aware that changes must be implemented. Other fans, the ones that only gather when there is a big fight that was heavily promoted, will eat anything that is on the table; they don’t mind if the fight is really competitive all they want is to see one guy get utterly beaten.
Valero and Sal Sanchez left too early, others don’t fight anymore but there are good fighters left that will become the next generation of the most feared, the meanest and the bravest fighters that we all will enjoy. But who are these upcoming fighters? What about Marcos Maidana, Dimitry Pirog, Saul Alvarez, Juan Manuel Lopez, Kell Brook, Luis Garcia, Alexander Frenkel, Ruslan Provodnikov, Wilfredo Vazquez Jr and Roman Gonzalez; time will tell if they are able to accomplish what is expected of them.
If the reader by any chance has a bottle of beer or a glass of whiskey on his hand lets raise our drinks and say cheers to all these mean sons of boxing who are the only ones that make boxing what it is.
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