How does British boxing compare with the rest? Who is UK’s no.1?

By Boxing News - 05/25/2011 - Comments

Image: How does British boxing compare with the rest? Who is UK's no.1?By Ryan Lynch: UK boxing, as much as people like to doubt it, is on the up. There is no doubt about it, people like Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacqiuao, the forever going Bernard Hopkins plus a few others are still streets ahead of our home based fighters, but are we close?

The UK, for me, has three world class boxers at this moment in time. Carl Froch has fought everybody put in front of him, and when you look at his last five fights compared to even Pacqiuao, you can clearly see he isn’t scared of fighting anybody or losing his belts. To me that is a winner in it’s self. If he was to go on and win the super six, which from watching Andre ward is possible, he surely would be credited with the praise he deserves.

David Haye is somebody we need to win, because he really could shake up heavyweight boxing. He is not the best fighter in the world, but neither are the Klitschkos and with the right game plan, like against Nikolay Valuev, we could see a shift in power. He may not win in amazing fashion, but he could well get the job done.

Khan has all the ingredients to follow in Pacquiao’s footsteps, and really push on and prove himself in the welterweight division. He proved himself against Marcos Maidana, and if he follows that up with another good win against a recognized champion then we could see big things.

Nathan cleverly, until he fights somebody of world class level, will be a fighter we know not enough about. He has been unlucky with fight cancellations, but I do believe his style could cause him problems. The talk of him fighting Hopkins or pascal are ridiculous and he would be losing his belt to quickly.

On a domestic level, for me James DeGale is the best of the rest. I was ringside on Saturday night and I still can’t believe he lost the fight. For me he has Floyd Mayweather skills and he needs to lose the talk and concentrate on his boxing. I believe a number of elements lost him that fight, including the crowd and his attitude towards his opponent in the lead up. I will lay my word on the line now by saying that I know he will go further than George Groves in the future, as long as he can lose the attitude.

The USA has many fighters from around the world based there, and as a fight fan I envy the amount of fights available in there country, but on a domestic level I believe we are close to challenging them in major title fights and having both countries square off against each over on both sides of the pond. We here in the UK want to see more American fighters on are shores.



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