2017.. a year full of boxing highlights

WHEN I think about 2017, I see Josh

Taylor taking Ohara Davies to pieces and coming of age against Miguel Vazquez.

I see Chantelle Cameron celebrating a junior world title in only her fourth fight and stopping Viviane Obenauf in her fifth to be crowned IBO lightweight champion.

These were deeply personal moments for me. To witness Taylor doing what Saul Alvarez and Timothy Bradley could not by stopping Vazquez for the first time confirmed my belief that we have a real superstar on our hands.

Chantelle’s victory against Obenauf, who had never been stopped before and went the distance with Katie Taylor, was also confirmation of a world-class talent.

We are in the early stages of women’s professional boxing but already I can see a huge night looming when Chantelle shares a ring with Taylor.

Elsewhere in my highlights reel, George Groves winning a world title at his fourth attempt and with a broken jaw to boot, meant so much.

Anthony Joshua’s barnburner with Wladimir Klitschko in April also looms large. The scale of the occasion at a packed Wembley with world titles on the line was the setting for an epic contest.

When heavyweights go at it like they did, there is no drama like it in sport. And Joshua climbing off the carpet to win was the stuff of legend.

In August, Floyd Mayweather came out of retirement to create a spectacle of equal splendour against Mr UFC, Conor Mcgregor, in Las Vegas, until the first bell rang. Mcgregor was brave but ill equipped to enter a boxing ring against one of the greatest fighters of all time.

Ultimately, the episode demonstrated that sport is about the contest not the fanfare, a point proved when Gennady Golovkin and Alvarez met a month later in the same ring. Sadly, an absorbing fight will be remembered for the scoring of Adalaide Byrd, who somehow had it 118/110 in favour of Canelo to give the Mexican a rather fortunate draw.

Earlier this month, Vasyl Lomachenko took it out of the judges’ hands against Guillermo Rigondeaux, who quit at the end of the sixth with a busted left hand.

I have always said boxing mirrors life in the many challenges fighters must overcome to win. And you never know what’s round the corner.

So get out there, chase your dreams, take every opportunity by the scruff of the neck. You won’t regret it. Merry Christmas and thanks for reading.