Terrance Crawford, Nicholas Walters and the Future Top 10 Pound For Pound

By Travis Fleming

The sport of boxing will soon be wide open and in search of new stars to fill the changing of the old guard. Within just a few years, we will no longer have Floyd Mayweather, JR. and Manny Pacquiao as the faces of the sport. Wladimir Klitschko will ride off into the sunset, leaving the heavyweight division with competitive championship fights, and previous highly ranked pound for pound fighters like Juan Manuel Marquez, Nonito Donaire, Miguel Cotto, Carl Froch, and Bernard Hopkins will be, hopefully, enjoying their retirements. There’s a few big names on the rise that are obvious choices to fill the void due to their popularity such as Canelo Alvarez, Adrien Broner, Danny Garcia and Gennady Golovkin. There’s also the likes of Andre Ward and Roman Gonzales, who are sure be in the top five pound for pound for years to come, but there are a couple of young champions with outstanding skills that I feel will be right there with them. The fighters I’m referring to are Terrance Crawford and Nicholas Walters.

Both guys are undefeated with 25 wins, both have recently proven their worth with signature wins, both have incredible skill sets, and they are also young enough to carve out hall of fame careers by the time they are finished, if all goes according to plans. Last year was a breakout year for both men and they ended their 2014 campaigns as the kings of their divisions.
Terrance Crawford might be the slickest boxer we have seen since Floyd Mayweather, JR. Hailing from Omaha, Nebraska, the 27 year old is a master technician with an uncanny ability to contort his body and avoid punches. He’s very well rounded and just as capable at fighting on the inside as he is at outboxing a man from the outside. He’s got fast hands, a good variety of punches and, although he’s not heavy handed, he has enough pop to keep an opponent honest. Perhaps his best asset is his high Ring IQ that allows him to adapt mid round to take away an opponents strongest weapons and exploit their weaknesses. It’s almost as if, in a fraction of a second before an opponent does something, Crawford can sense what he is going to do and respond with a punch or maneuver to negate it. Crawford was, arguably, the fighter of the year in 2015 and was also involved in one of the best fights of the year.

He began the year crossing the ocean to challenge lightweight champion Ricky Burns for his WBO world championship. Crawford would capture the title with ease in enemy territory and show off his sublime skill set to the world in the process, winning by wide decision to take home his first world championship. Next, he would be facing one of the most talented fighters in the sport in Yuriorkis Gamboa for a June showdown in his hometown of Omaha. He proved too big, and too good for Gamboa, knocking him out in the ninth round in one of the best fights of the year. In this fight, Crawford showed that if outslugging an opponent is his best path to victory, he isn’t afraid to pick his shots and do just that. Crawford closed the year out defending his championship with another wide decision, this time over top contender Raymundo Beltran. Crawford put on a boxing clinic and was hardly touched in his twelve round shutout of a very good fighter. By the end of the year, Crawford announced that, after becoming king of the lightweight division in less than twelve months, he would be moving up in weight to try and become a two division champion in 2015. In April, he will get that opportunity when he fights Thomas Dulorme for the vacant WBO light welterweight championship of the world. Crawford was a very big lightweight and should have no trouble moving a weight up. Expect Crawford to get crowned king at 140 within a couple of years and then make the move up to 147 to become a 3 division champion. Along the way there are many good fighters in both weight classes that will test him but, ultimately, I cannot see any of them getting a victory when pitted against Crawford’s unbelievable ring smarts. Crawford has the most potential out of any young fighter today and very well might retire as a great.

Nicholas Walters is an absolute beast. He is a giant for a featherweight and has the size and power to, potentially, carry him all the way up to light welterweight with success. By the time the 29 year old is finished, dont be surprised if he retires as a five division world champion and the greatest Jamaican fighter since “the body snatcher”, Mike Mccallum. He hits very hard with both hands, he has a good jab, he has excellent fundamentals, his chin is iron, he has underrated defense, and he goes for the kill when it presents itself but never gets wild and sloppy. He is a composed killer. He can use his length to box on the outside or use his physical strength to rough up an opponent on the inside. He is the prototypical boxer, puncher. Like Crawford, he also had one of the most impressive campaigns in 2014. He entered the year as the WBA world featherweight champion and got his first major exposure to American audiences in May against power punching, former multi weight champion, Vic Darchinyan. He put the boxing world on notice with an absolute destruction of the popular veteran, dropping Darchinyan several times before brutally knocking him out in the fifth round. In October, he would enter the ring as an underdog against fellow champion, and future hall of famer, Nonito Donaire. He shocked the boxing world by laying a vicious beating on Donaire and stopping him in in the sixth round to become the man to beat at featherweight. Expect Walters to wait around at featherweight for another year with hopes of landing a big fight against either Gary Russell, JR., Vasyl Lomachenko, or Guillermo Rigondeaux. If none of these fights materialize, Walters will likely move up in weight to snatch a title at super featherweight before climbing into the lightweight division.

Boxing is about to enter an exciting transition where new stars are made and unlikely heroes emerge. We, as fans, are in for a treat as we watch the new talent attempt to replace the former kings and faces of the sport. The guard is changing, boxing’s popularity is growing and the sport is in good hands with the new crop of talent. Just for the hell of it, I decided to illustrate what we might be in for by predicting what the top ten pound for pound list could look like in a few years, as well as predicting who I feel will be the most popular fighters in the sport since they are not always the same as the top pound for pound fighters as we saw with De La Hoya, Gatti etc… We welcome any discussion, suggestions, or changes.

2018 top 10 pound for pound boxers:
1. Andre Ward
2. Terrence Crawford
3. Roman Gonzales
4. Nicholas Walters
5. Gennady Golovkin
6. Vasyl Lomachenko
7. Danny Garcia
8. Sergey Kovalev
9. Saul Alvarez
10. Kell Brook

2018 Faces of Boxing:
1. Saul Alvarez
2. Gennady Golovkin
3. Adrien Broner
4. Andre Ward