The next big thing in U.S. boxing gets his first big test

The United States doesn't produce many great boxers any more. The failures of the Olympic boxing program have been well documented, highlighted by the inability to win medals of any kind.

The U.S. has won just three gold medals in the last six Olympic Games – Oscar De La Hoya in 1992, David Reid in 1996 and Andre Ward in 2004. Worse, the U.S. has just 12 medals total since 1992.

There was a time when the U.S. Olympic boxing program regularly produced fighters who turned into superstars in the pros, men such as Floyd Mayweather Jr., Sugar Ray Leonard, Roy Jones Jr., De La Hoya and Michael Spinks, among many others.

Those days are long gone, now. Its best hope for a superstar is a quiet Texan who prefers to avoid the fanfare who has slowly risen the ranks.

Errol Spence Jr. won a slew of Prospect of the Year awards at the end of 2015, including from Yahoo Sports, after starting his career with a 19-0 record with 16 knockouts.

He's been compared to the legendary Leonard, who not only was one of the best American Olympic boxers ever, but also one of the 10 or 15 greatest professional fighters of all-time.

Yet, Spence has fought a shockingly poor caliber of opposition, making it hard to truly judge him.

His competition will jump several notches on April 16 when he faces veteran Chris Algieri on NBC at the Barclays Center in New York City.

Expectations for Spence are extraordinarily high, but he shrugs it off.

"I don't worry about that," he says of the expectations, "and I really don't even look into that stuff. You want to say I'm the next Sugar Ray Leonard? That's great, but it's not going to win me a fight. I have to perform. I just have to stay grounded and hungry and not get caught up in trying to be the next anybody."

Lou DiBella, who is promoting the Algieri-Spence fight, referred to Spence as a "very, very good, very promising prospect," and said the "sky is the limit for this kid. People have predicted this kid to become a future superstar, and I can see why."

But DiBella is not about to coronate Spence.

He's been around long enough to know that it's up to Spence to do it in the ring and that one bad night can change things.

In Algieri, Spence is facing his most battled-tested opponent, a man who defeated Ruslan Provodnikov, went 12 rounds with Manny Pacquiao and who gave Amir Khan a stern test.

Algieri rejects the gate-keeper notion, but it's exactly what he is for Spence: He's a measuring stick of how good Spence really is and how far he can go.

Algieri was knocked down six times by Pacquiao, but each time pulled himself off the canvas and kept fighting. He was nearly out in the first round of his bout with Provodnikov, one of the sport's hardest punchers, but roared back to win.

If Spence can handle Algieri, it will be a statement.

"Chris is not a steppingstone and he's not looking at himself that way at all," DiBella said. "But Spence believes he's supposed to beat Algieri. I know he thinks he belongs right there with [Keith] Thurman, [Shawn] Porter and those guys as the best in the division.

"I'll be honest with you, I don't think he believes Mayweather is out of his league. He believes in himself that much. But he has to go out there and prove it and he knows how important this fight is."

Spence laughs off the notion he faces pressure in this bout. He's respectful toward Algieri and has nothing but nice things to say about him.

But this is a guy used to winning and, even though he's soft-spoken and not prone to hyperbole, has a deep-seated belief in himself.

Though he didn't win a medal in the London Games, the experience he gained there was invaluable, he said.

"The Olympics have helped me so much, just being on the biggest stage and understanding what it takes to compete there," he said. "It made me hungry to get to the pros and get out there and win multiple world titles."

To win multiple, he'll first have to win one. If he beats Algieri, he'll move down the road toward a title shot.

Now, having lost on the opportunity to win gold in London, he has his eyes on a gold belt.

"I went to the Olympics and my main thing was to win the gold, and when I didn't get it, I was pretty down about it," he said. "It's OK to be down and to be upset, but you have to know how to bounce back. And that disappointment helped me, I think, because I am hungrier now than I ever have been."