Three most underrated fighters

By Bob Smith - 05/11/2013 - Comments

wladimir#7By Bob Smith: Earlier I wrote that in my opinion the two most overrated fighters currently are heavyweight Tyson Fury and junior middleweight Canelo Alvarez. But what about the most underrated fighters? I name three: Vitali Klitschko, Wladimir Klitschko, and Gennady Golovkin.

Why are they are underrated? It is simple – boxing announcers, promoters and commentators are strikingly similar between the mid-80s and currently – if you watch the old Tyson fights or other 1980s fights of the era, there is Al Bernstein and Harold Lederman commenting, with Bob Arum as a promoter in the background. I don’t dispute that they are excellent commentators or promoters, but boxing commentary and promotion does have a lot of barriers to entry (otherwise they would have had some competition in the last 27 years or so). Basically, they still have a Cold War mentality and are biased against Russian/Ukrainian fighters. And this goes for the network heads as well.

If any other ethnic group in the world had two brothers as heavyweight champions at any time, much less for 4 years plus, and really since the end of the Lennox Lewis era neither has been seriously challenged, then they hype would be unbearable. But as it stands “the heavyweight division just wasn’t what it once was,” etc. But don’t take it from me, take it from Shannon Briggs, after he suffered a career ending fight that saw him rushed to the hospital intensive care afterwards with a left orbital fracture, a broken nose, another facial fracture above the right eye and a burst ear drum:

“I fought Lennox Lewis, George Foreman and Vitali Klitschko and Vitali Klitschko is the best fighter I ever fought – by far. By far. I take my hat off to him,” Briggs stated with a conviction in his voice as quoted by boxinginsider.com. “His hand speed, his mobility, his power. I’ve been hit by George Foreman, by Lennox Lewis. Vitali hits harder. Vitali is a great fighter, a great sportsman, he treated us with nothing but respect.”

Vitali Klitschko has the 2nd highest knockout percentage of any heavyweight fighter in history; he has never been knocked down and only lost twice due to injuries when he was winning on the cards both times, and he has had 9 successful title defenses in the past five years or so. And while Wladimir does receive some acclaim, in fact, he is only second to Joe Louis as the longest lasting heavyweight champion, and has not lost in 9 years. To say “the competition is weak” is to say “Mayweather fights are boring” – when one fighter completely outclasses another yes, there is less competition, of course.

Golovkin also, while not yet in the class of the Klitschkos has 13 straight knockout victories and has never been knocked down as an amateur or a professional. I see him beating all middleweights except for Sergio Martinez, though it would be a much more competitive fight if he fought the Sergio Martinez of April rather than the one of last September.



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