Mayweather Jr. deserves to be Fighter of the Year

By Boxing News - 12/25/2013 - Comments

floyd#5By Chris Williams: For his two impressive wins this year over Robert Guerrero and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Floyd Mayweather Jr. (45-0, 26 KO’s) clearly deserves to get the 2013 Fighter of the Year award. Mayweather’s only competition is Adonis Steveson, who stopped Chad Dawson, Tavoris Cloud and Tony Bellew. Those were all good wins, but the quality of opposition wasn’t as good as Mayweather’s

The way that Mayweather turned Canelo into a very average looking fighter. It was very impressive to watch because no one has ever done that before to Canelo, and it’s quite possible that we won’t see anyone else doing that to him until he’s in his late 30s. Canelo tried hard to catch Mayweather with his big power shots, but he just wasn’t fast or skilled enough to land his punches.

Robert Guerrero came into the Mayweather fight with some impressive wins over Andre Berto and Selcuk Aydin, but Mayweather was able to land at will against him while making Guerrero miss with his best shots. Guerrero is another very good fighter, but Mayweather reduced him to just a punching bag in that fight. I expect Guerrero to accomplish big things in the future once he gets busy again with his career. There’s no one else that could do to Guerrero what Mayweather did.

Last year’s Fighter of the Years Nonito Donaire obviously can’t be mentioned as being a candidate this year because he was easily beaten by Guillermo Rigondeaux last April. But you can make an argument that Donaire didn’t do enough last year to deserve the aware for his empty wins over Toshiaki Nishioka, Jorge Arce, Jeffrey Mathebula and Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. Donaire was a controversial pick due to his weak opposition.

Manny Pacquiao didn’t do enough this year to deserve the award because he only fought once in beating Brandon Rios last month. Rios was coming off of a loss to Mike Alvarado and he was an odd choice for Pacquiao to fight, but it’s not the first time Pacquiao has fought an opponent coming off of a defeat.

Mayweather has a good chance of snatching the Fighter of the Year award in 2014 if he get some quality opponents in the ring with him. I’m not sure that Amir Khan is a good enough name to wow the fans next year, but Marcos Maidana is a good name and hopefully he’ll one of the guys that Mayweather faces next year.



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