As promised in the beginning of the year, 2019 will be and is the biggest year in boxing history. Boxing is growing at a phenomenal clip with networks and arenas all competing for fight cards.

Furthermore, having a lot of sports stars such as LeBron James being a big boxing fan helps put  boxing in the main stream media.

Talking about main stream media, Andy Ruiz Jr. monumental upset over Anthony Joshua has made noise the world over. With the youth of the world not knowing that much about boxing, but all connected on social media, The fat guy that beat Hercules is one of the biggest social media stories of 2019.

The power of social media is pretty amazing, as most kids now around the world know the name Andy Ruiz Junior but might not know the name of Anthony Joshua, Canelo Alvarez or Gennadiy Golovkin.

With about two weeks to go in a terrific action packed month of June which also celebrated the International Hall of Fame 2019 inductees, let’s take a look of the candidates for boxer of the month so far and also talk about some of the big boxing news currently on our minds:

Andy Ruiz Junior will probably capture the distinct honor of Boxing Action Magazine’s boxer of the month for staging the biggest upset since Mike Tyson / Buster Douglas.

Also Delfine Persoon put on a memorable fight against Katie Taylor in what is now almost universally considered the best women’s boxing match of all time. Many believe that Persoon dominated the lightweight battle and got the short end of the stick at Madison Square Garden that evening.

41 year old Super Zab Judah got stopped in the 11th round by Cletus Seldin at the Turning Stone Resort in Verona, New York. Big respect to Judah for standing up and giving 100% in a terrific battle, Judah earned big respect that night for going out on his shield, that’s the only option a warrior has. Prayers for Zab Judah and his family as he recovers from a tough fight.

GGG is back knocking out a very underrated, undefeated and skilled Steve Rolls. Triple G against Canelo Alvarez in September would be a dream fight and one of the biggest boxing fights of all time if only Oscar Dela Hoya and Canelo will step up and do the right thing by boxing -less tweeting and more action. And for the Canelo fans who say that Triple G doesn’t deserve a fight against Canelo- go watch table tennis.

Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing continues to lead the way by not only staging the best boxing card of the year at Madison Square Garden on June 1, but also just announcing Maurice Hooker versus Jose Ramirez in a huge Junior welterweight unification fight.

Manny Pacquiao and Keith Thurman continue to train for their big show down in what should be a very very exciting fight – coming up in July. I believe this will be PAC’s last great win of his career.

And of course another huge fight being talked about -happening at the end of 2019 is the big Anthony Joshua versus Andy Ruiz Junior heavyweight rematch. That fight and card will be a monster.

Clarissa Shields is in a tough situation as she has completely dominated and cleaned out the middleweight division. When you combine her boxing skills and power together, there is really nobody else near her weight class that compares. I hope her prime years are not wasted waiting for the next big fight and fighting only every six months. I would like to see her be very active and fight every 2 to 3 months on a major undercard. Even if the fight is a miss mismatch she just needs to stay very very active to keep her name out there and also have as many fans as possible watch her live, this is really the only way to make Clarissa Shields a household name.

In a perfect world,  Shields should do the Roy Jones Junior Road and move up in weight and capture multiple division titles, problem in women’s boxing is once you get past the 168 pound division there is really a handful of professionals in the sport.

Photo courtesy of DAZN