By Gerardo Granados: As the year comes to an end, I am pleased to say, that this has been a good year to be a boxing fan. But not thanks to the “Fight of the Century” between Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao, which developed and ended just as I predicted; and I am sure only a few will have a hard time trying to forget about it.
But still we the fight fans did get to enjoy many good fights; it is true we could not escape the usual avoiding of the so-called big names of real threats, but we witnessed the beginning of a new era in the heavyweight division which might be the spotlight of this year.
Before I continue I want to thank all those anonymous fighters who at all the corners of the world put up great fights to please the crowd.
A lackluster award but a necessary one, the “Robbery of the Year” goes to Danny Garcia vs Lamont Peterson. Regardless that Peterson clearly out-boxed Garcia edging ring generalship and defense, also got the nod at effective aggression and clean and hard punching, landing the most meaningful punches, the scorecards gave the victory to Danny by a majority decision 115-113 x2 and 114-114, I had it 117-111 for Peterson.
It is an odd award but will be awarded this year too; the “Worst Fight of the Year” goes to Guillermo Rigondeaux vs Drian Francisco. If you saw it you know why it was awarded, but it you didn’t watch it, well then you should stay that way.
“Mismatch of the year” goes to Peter Quillin vs Michael Zefara. By far the worst mismatch this year contested between a former title holder and a local club fighter.
“Trainer of the year” goes to: for the second year in a row to Abel Sanchez.
“Upset of the year” goes to Wladimir Klitschko vs Tyson Fury. Only a very few boxing analyst gave a good chance to Fury to win. Although, I saw it as a coin toss, the trend among most of the boxing media journalist had Klitschko as the winner.
“Knockout of the year” goes to Canelo Alvarez brutal knockout of James Kirkland.
“Fight of the year” goes to: at least three bouts are deserving of the award, to make the choice wasn’t easy, and for sure many readers will disagree. Non the less, a choice had to be made and just as when you score the round, you better not give it a draw 10-10 so, the winner was the Takashi Miura vs Francisco Vargas featherweight epic battle.
A special mention for, the Marco Huck versus Krzysztof Glowacki fight, and to the Andrzej Fonfara versus Nathan Cleverly battle of attrition.
“Fighter of the year” goes to the Gypsy King Tyson Fury. Why? Because his historic boxing achievement. The rest of award contenders either fought lesser opposition or past due opponents.
Maybe next year will be better than this one, hey perhaps naive fight fans will once again pay one hundred notes to see an unnecessary rematch. But, for now, let’s congratulate the 2015 Boxingnews24 Awards winners.
I wish a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all the readers.
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