By Gav Duthie: It is entirely possible that Claressa Shields 4-0 (2) is just too good. The unified Super Middleweight world champion faces Tori Nelson 17-0-3 (2) tonight. Boxrec has the 41-year-old Nelson at #2 in their rankings so the question is what does Shields do after this.
By Gav Duthie: Promoter Yvon Michel has declared the intention of Eleider Alvarez 23-0 (11) not to participate in purse bids for a final, final, final, final eliminator against Oleksandr Gvozdyk 14-0 (12). I apologize that the word final was written 4 times, but it was intentional because this would-be Alvarez’s 4th final eliminator to get a shot at the WBC title held by Adonis Stevenson.
By Gav Duthie: Floyd Mayweather finished his career winning the battle of boxing against UFC and an “unparalleled” 50-0 (27) record breaking stretch. I for one feel Floyd Mayweather’s legacy stands with his level of victories, world titles through 5 weight classes and not the number.
By Gav Duthie: Even with the surprise retirement of pound-for-pound #1 Andre Ward 32-0 (16), the 175lb Light Heavyweight division is by far the best and most talented division in boxing. Big punching Russians dominate the titles with Sergey Kovalev WBO, Artur Beterbiev IBF and Dimitry Bivol WBA and possible unification bouts between them is a mouthwatering prospect.
By Gav Duthie: One of the great successes of 2017 was the HBO SuperFly card put on at the back end of the year. The network had been trying exhaustively to promote P4P contender Roman ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez and this card was seen as one of the ways to do it. It’s very difficult to market anything below featherweight and there hasn’t really been any potential lower weight stars since Ricardo Lopez in the 1990s.
By Gav Duthie: There were some good fights in another solid year for British boxing. Here are my top 5 fighters of 2017 in the UK. Honorable mentions go to Lee Selby who had 3 solid wins in the year, Tony Bellew for beating David Haye and Kal Yafai for is two title defenses against Japanese opposition.
By Gav Duthie: After reviewing the year it feels like the right time to preview next year. If we get a year anywhere near as good as 2017 boxing will continue to be in a strong place.
By Gav Duthie: It’s that time of the year again. Arguably the best year of boxing this century is coming to a close. Here is my personal categories and winners for what it’s worth.
By Gav Duthie: After Saturday night we now have a standout candidate for upset of the year after James DeGale lost his IBF title to 34-year-old American Caleb Truax. DeGale has taken the loss badly and is even contemplating retirement saying, “It’s still quite soon after the fight so I’m not going to make any immediate decisions and I’ll take some time out over the Christmas and New Year to reflect”.
By Gav Duthie: Since the contest was made between amateur stars Vasyl ‘Matrix’ Lomachenko 9-1 (7) and Guillermo ‘The Jackal’ Rigondeaux 17-0-0-1 (11) I have been racking my brain trying to think of a better fight ever made from a technical point of view. It is a fact that they are the first ever double Olympic champions to meet each other as professionals and they are two of the best pound for pound fighters around.