British boxing has produced some of the greats of all of boxing history, such as Lennox Lewis, Joe Calzaghe and a hell of a lot more and with a lot of current day British boxers making their name at the top of the boxing world, it’s sometimes hard to notice the young prospects sculpting their names lower down but there is a whole platoon of young hungry fighters that are ready to leap at the next big opportunity. Here are some of the biggest and worthwhile names to watch in British Boxing right now that will be household names in years to come.
10. Jason Easton – Super Lightweight 10-0 (6 KO’S)
The Scotsman recently won the vacant International Boxing Organization Inter-Continental super lightweight title with his fight with Steve Jamoye, which ended by TKO. The 25-year-old possesses the talent and ability to make his way to be one of the best, he certainly has the tools.
9. Paul Hyland Jnr – Lightweight 16-0 (6 KO’s)
The Northern Irish boxer is still yet to really test himself against a higher standard fight but still has an impressive record to boast as well as his vacant IBF East/West Europe lightweight title after his fight for the title with Adam Dingsdale, which he won in style with his stunning first round TKO. Even bigger nights are ahead for Paul.
8. Reece Bellotti – Featherweight 10-0 (9 KO’S)
The 26-year-old boxer has an impressive 90% knockout ratio in his professional career so far and has recently picked up the vacant WBC International Silver featherweight title from his TKO victory, over Jamie Speight. The possibilities the future may hold for the Watford boxer is endless. ‘The Bomber’ didn’t intend to be a boxer and had never laced up a pair of gloves until he was 14, and that was in an attempt to aid his football career.
7. Gamal Yafai – Super Bantamweight 12-0 (5 KO’S)
Gamal has got the Commonwealth (British Empire) super bantamweight title and the WBC International super bantamweight title already since making his debut in 2014. ‘The Beast’ from Birmingham possess the ability that can take him to the top of the boxing game if he can apply it correctly.
6. Josh Leather – Super Lightweight 12-0 (6 KO’S)
Leather recently fought for and the won the vacant IBF Inter-Continental super lightweight title with his fight with Philip Sutcliffe Jnr. The young fighter from Yorkshire definitely has what it takes to go to the top and at just 25 years old, has so much time to get even better.
5. Jack Catterall – Super Lightweight 18-0 (10 KO’S)
Was notable once one of Floyd Mayweather’s sparring partner ahead of the Manny Pacquiao fight. When talking about his experiences, he said ‘Coming out here to spar with Mayweather has been like coming out of school and going straight to university. ‘It’s been an unbelievable opportunity to share a ring with one of the greatest fighters of all time in the build to arguably the biggest fight of all time.”
He also has an impressive boxing CV under his belt with his vacant BBBofC Central Area super lightweight, WBO European super lightweight, vacant WBO Inter-Continental super lightweight to name a few. It’s almost a sure thing to say Jack will go on to dominate boxing.
4. Jamie Cox – Super Middleweight 23-0 (13 KO’S)
Jamie has a lot more pro bouts under his belt than most on the list and is already had some and has some big fights coming up. He also has had a lot more belts throughout his career than most on the list such as the Commonwealth light-middleweight title, the WBO European super-middleweight title and the WBA Continental super-middleweight title and is currently in the quarter-finals of the World Boxing Super Series against George Groves which will be his toughest challenge to date. Cox certainly has the potential to go the top and it should be interesting to see where he goes from the super series.
3. Lawrence Okolie – Heavyweight 4-0 (4 KO’S)
So far in the 24-year old’s career, he has recorded every one of his wins with a first round knockout and like pretty much everyone mentioned on this list, has been dubbed but many to a future world champion. It was announced he has KO’d world champion Anthony Joshua out in sparring back in 2016 and has only gained hype since. He trains like an animal and clearly has a sensible boxing head and routine to take him to the top and fight with the big fish but before that he will be having preparation fights, likely for the foreseeable future but could see himself rushed into an early title shot like his idol AJ.
2. Josh Taylor – Super Lightweight 10-0 (9 KO’S)
One of the most talked about young British boxers in the current day. The ‘Tartan Tornado’ picked up the vacant Commonwealth light welterweight title with his 5th round TKO victory over Dave Ryan on the 21st of October 2016 and has successfully defended his title twice since as well as recently acquiring the WBC silver light welterweight title from Ohara Davies. Josh has had a lot of support from famous faces with a lot of footballers and former pro boxers backing him to big things. Even all-time boxing great, Floyd Mayweather expressed his support for Taylor commenting on one of Josh’s posts saying ‘Josh Taylor you are going to be world champ boy.’ Taylor is expected by many to take the boxing world and make it his own and it’s not hard to see why.
Honorable Mentions:
Reece Cartwright – Middleweight 17-0 (10 KO’S)
When you are 17-0 at the age of 23 and a title in the IBF Youth middleweight title, you have got to be doing something right. It will be interesting to see if he can make the step up and reach the heights of his potential.
Anthony Fowler – Light Middleweight 2-0 (2 KO’S)
Cousin of former Liverpool FC striker has had the perfect start to his professional boxing career after his making his debut on the Kell Brook-Errol Spence under card. Fowler had successful at amateur by picking up bronze at the 2013 world championship and gold at the 2014 commonwealth games in Glasgow
Thomas Patrick Ward – Super Bantamweight 21-0 (2 KO’S)
The 23-year-old made his debut on the 15th of July, 2012 at the age of 18 against Elemir Rafael and has since won the British super-bantamweight title. At his age, he still has some learning to do but with all the time in the world to reach his potential.
Joshua Buatsi – Light Heavyweight 1-0 (1 KO)
Joshua represented team GB at the Olympics 2016 in Rio where he picked up bronze. Born in Ghana but moved to England with his family.
Charlie Schofield – Light Heavyweight 10-0 (1 KO)
Charlie is a young fighter at just 24 years old with bags of skill and determination. He puts incredible effort into his training is exciting to watch.
Joe Pigford – Super Welterweight 13-0 (12 KO’S)
At only 24 years old, Pigford has an impressive record with his 13 bouts making a total of 35 rounds and a 92% KO percentage although he is yet to be challenged by anyone of a higher standard
1 Anthony Yarde – Light heavyweight 12-0 (11 KO’S)
At just 25 years old, Yarde has already acquired the WBO European light-heavyweight with even bigger things definitely in store. He beat Hungarian, Richard Baranyi to become the WBO European champion for his weight division after a TKO in the very first round with 7 Out of his 11 knockouts have come in the first round. He is heavily tipped to take the world of boxing by storm and with his natural and gifted abilities along with his massive self-belief and confidence, nothing will hold him back. His promoter Frank Warren has labelled him as the ‘new age Nigel Benn’ and when addressing this, Yarde said he was honoured and motivated to be compared to someone like that. He almost took a different path with one of his teachers urged him to go into Rugby, pushed into athletics after a successful sports day while he had dreams of making it as a footballer, having trials at QPR. Yarde already has one of the most remarkable stories when he came out and talked about how he witnessed stabbings and shootings, overcoming this to chase his dream. Expect exciting stuff from the name Anthony Yarde.
Summary:
British boxing is looking good again with current and future world champions that will be sure to dominate the boxing world. None or all of the boxers may live up to their potential and it’s even a possibility some of these names will cross paths in the future. It will be interesting to see what 5 years would do to these fighters to see if any of them became world champions or flopped but it’s clear, for these fighters, the future is very bright.
