By Byron Wallin: Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather and Manny ‘Pacman’ Pacquiao have been sitting high in their pedestals holding boxing fan’s hearts in their hands for the past three years. The talk of their long awaited, much anticipated, utterly ridiculous ‘mega fight’ has gone from a source of fevered excitement, to irritation, and currently is nothing less that farcical.
Both these fighters have cheery picked and hyped their way into boxing fan’s wallets for too long, and finally, it appears people have had enough.
Both Floyd and Manny have milked the mythical pound for pound debate to the point of drought. Both avoiding one another and happy to do so, with no respect, regard or sense of duty to their millions of fans around the world, who would love nothing more than to watch them fight. However, whilst these two fighters have been filming their latest self indulgent 24/7 series, there have been a wealth of real fighters plying their trade around the world in order to attain greatness whilst giving back to their fans. I will apologize now, as I am bound to leave out some very worthy claimants to the title ‘warrior’
Firstly, there is no fighter in the world right now who embodies the word ‘warrior’ than Britain’s Carl Froch, who has overcome adversity to become a three time World Champion after destroying the heavily favoured Lucian Bute – a man who himself padded his record before being exposed by a hardened road warrior. Froch has fought eight genuine back World title fights, without catch weights or paper titles involved.
Sergio Martinez is now into the Autumn of his career, however, he has been dispatching current and former champions for the past few years, as well as destroying genuine tough contenders. In fact, he has performed so brilliantly and displayed such power, speed and heart, that the two ‘pound for pound kings’ want no part of him, despite his offers to make weight concessions.
Other fighters I will believe have earned the warrior title, and I’m confident would take a fight with either Mayweather or Pacquiao in a heartbeat are; Marcos Maidana, Lucas Matthysse, Robert Guerrero, Juan Manuel Marquez, Miguel Cotto and although the Jury may still be out, maybe Amir Khan. As aforementioned, there are surely many others I have failed to mention that perhaps others will.
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