Photo by Naoki Fukada
In honor of Independence Day Weekend, Round By Round Boxing brings you the top five active American fighters. It was tough to leave out guys like Danny Garcia and Peter Quillen, and it was equally tough to qualify Andre Ward as “active” but here’s the list anyway. Enjoy, and happy 4th of July to every fight fan.
5. Mikey Garcia (34-0, 28 KOs)
Photo by Gene Blevins
Mikey Garcia was being groomed by Top Rank as a possible heir to Manny Pacquiao. In fact, Bob Arum spoke of eventually matching the two fighters against each other at some point.
Garcia is a rock solid boxer/puncher. He does everything well, and he’s beaten some decent opponents, most notably Orlando Salido and Juan Manuel Lopez.
His career has hit an impasse however, as he is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with Top Rank. He’s trying to get out of his contract, which seems to be a running theme with that company.
Hopefully it gets cleared up soon, because although Garcia has yet to develop a big following, it’s undeniable that he’s got loads of talent and is just now entering his prime.
If things get cleared up, mouth-watering fights like Garcia vs. Yuriorkis Gamboa, or Garcia vs. Vasyl Lomachenko are definite possibilities.
4. Bernard Hopkins (55-6-2, 32 KO’s)
Photo By Tom Casino
“People my age, they don’t do the things I do.”
Neil Young – “I’m The Ocean”
BHop continues to fly in the face of time, logic, and all human existence. He might not be what he once was, but boxing’s elder statesman certainly isn’t trading on his past.
The 49-year-old legend just recently dispatched Beibut Shumenov with an absolutely dominant performance, and he’s lined himself up with another shot at the lineal light heavyweight title at an age when he should be relaxing poolside or golfing.
While contemporaries like James Toney and Roy Jones are fighting in Latvia for scraps and straining to complete coherent sentences, Bernard Hopkins flat out refuses to acquiesce to undefeated Father Time.
He wiped out Shumenov, which is impressive enough. But the fact is that most of us figured he would, and most of us give him a realistic shot of beating Adonis Stevenson.
Someday he’ll slow down, but I’m not betting on it happening just yet.
3. Timothy Bradley (31-1, 12 KO’s)
Photo By Chris Farina
Tim “I’ve Got A Concussion” Bradley remains one of boxing’s best fighters, despite the fact that he doesn’t possess elite power. The lack of power isn’t insurmountable, it’s just that Bradley fights like he can crack like Tommy Hearns.
Bradley went straight at Ruslan “I’ll Eat Your Bones” Provodnikov, completely eschewing all reasonable logic in the process. He fought the dumbest fight imaginable. And he won anyway.
And while he was unable to take down Filipino legend Manny Pacquiao,(judging scorecards aside), he was able to cleanly defeat Pacquiao nemesis Juan Manuel Marquez. That is something very, very few fighters can say.
Bradley has several lucrative options ahead of him, including a rumored shot at Miguel Cotto. If he relies on his boxing skills and forgoes attacking with reckless abandon, he’ll have shot to win that fight. In any case, he’s an extremely difficult assignment for pretty much anyone in the world.
2. Andre Ward (27-0, 14 KO’s)
Courtesy New Sports Stars
Andre Ward is freakin brilliant in the ring. He has superb defense, sneaky offense and is as intelligent as any fighter in the world. Yet, Ward sightings are becoming about as frequent as Yeti sightings.
Not only are we missing out on seeing this fantastic fighter, but he’s losing the prime of his career to a courtroom.
Ward has essentially cleaned out the super middleweight division, easily defeating Mikkel Kessler and Carl Froch, and simply destroying Chad Dawson, who was at the time the light heavyweight champion. In fact, he’s never really even been in a close fight.
But it would appear that he’s less invincible outside the ring.
He’s suing his promoter Dan Goosen and seemingly getting his ass handed to him. Here’s to hoping he’s out of the courtroom and back in the ring before too much longer. Big fights are abound, if anyone will get in there with him. He’d be the favorite against anyone right now.
1. Floyd Mayweather (46-0, 26 KO’s)
Hogan Photos
“Money” overcame the toughest fight of his career in May, narrowly defeating Argentine monster Marcos Maidana to keep his perfect record intact. He’s long removed from his best days, when he effortlessly combined superhuman reflexes and defense with breathtaking flurries to overwhelm his opponents. But even at 37, he remains the best.
He doesn’t quite move the way he used to, and his offensive output isn’t what it was, but he is still deadly accurate and damn-near impossible to hit. Maidana was able to rough him up, similarly to the way Miguel Cotto did, but Maidana still landed very little of note.
It appears as though they’ll rematch in September, and Floyd will be the favorite again. He’s as polarizing a figure as anybody in boxing history (ditching Justin Bieber might help), but until someone knocks him off the throne, he’s still number one in the world.
