BERNSTEIN ON BOXING
GRATITUDES AND GRIPES By Al Bernstein
T his month in the United States, we traditionally set aside a holiday as Thanksgiving – a day to reflect, accentuate any positive aspects of our life and be thankful for it while hopefully surrounded by our friends and family. Or maybe it’s just a day to stuff ourselves with turkey and trimmings and watch football until we are bleary- eyed. For the sake of this column, I am sticking with the first option. We boxing fans need to be reminded of all the things we have to be thankful for right now. But, this being boxing, where nothing is totally positive, I will turn this premise on its ear a little. Along with all the things we are thankful for, I will appease the normal fan’s mentality and list the things we are NOT thankful for as well. Being me, one of boxing’s annoyingly glass-half-full guys, I will start with the positive. I’m thankful for these things:
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This age of brilliant fighters from Japan shows no sign of slowing down. With several world champions and well over a dozen top contenders in numerous divisions who were either champs at one time this year or could be soon, the Japanese wave of excellence is very real. Then you can add in the fact that virtually all these boxers have a crowd-pleasing, all-action style, and it makes for quite a delightful trend. Father Time, though still undefeated in boxing, suffered quite a setback this year when Oleksandr Usyk (38) and Terence Crawford (nearly 38 at the time) fought like they were in their prime. Both men solidified their position as two of the top three pound-for-pound fighters in the sport. At least one champion in the sport, Naoya Inoue (the other challenger for top three pound-for-pound honors), is slated to
Undisputed 122-pound champ Naoya Inoue is still flying high.
fight four times in this calendar year. Inactivity by many champions hampers the sport, and he is the poster kid for keeping a fan base involved and satiated. In a number of instances, judges were able to look past the favorite status of one fighter and award the decision to the actual winner. Several of these upsets include Ricardo Sandoval’s win over Kenshiro Teraji, Armando Resendiz’s victory against Caleb Plant, Ekow Essuman over Josh Taylor and Tiara Brown beating Skye Nicolson. It is heartening to see this happen, because it is not always so in boxing. Lester Martinez and Christian Mbilli; Kaye Scott and Olivia Curry; Chris Eubank
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