BoxRec

What are your contenders/picks for:

Fight of the year
Fighter of the year
Upset of the year
Trainer of the year
Knockout of the year

I thought of making this thread when I saw that the BWAA nominees for the first category are Matt-Molina, Brizuela-Coyle, Salido-Kokietgym, Crawford-Gamboa, and Rodriguez-Takayama.

I think Gamboa-Crawford is one of the most overrated fights in years. It seriously lack ebb and flow and from about the fourth on it was almost all Crawford, with Gamboa essentially being a heavybag between his trips to the canvas. Crawford also had to fight back from far less serious trouble than people like Brizuela, LM, and Salido did, so the fact that he may have been down after three isn't a good reason for that fight to be chosen. Additionally, I've heard people argue that it stands out because of the skill shown, but while Crawford and Gamboa are probably more skillful than the fighters involved in the other bouts, it was largely a slugging match after the third.

I went for Coyle/Brizuela,shame that Daniel never got to see the end,i was happy for Tommy but id be gutted if it was him that got stopped,the blood thirsty maniac in me felt that Brizuela had earned the right to continue after all that had happened and it being the last round

Mares-Ramirez at the weeekend was brutal if it did lack the ebb and flow your talking about

I dont know whats BWAA but what a sht of a list is that. Might as well include my drank neighbor vs his wife.

Tarkus wrote:I dont know whats BWAA but what a sht of a list is that. Might as well include my drank neighbor vs his wife.

Boxing Writers Association of America. Which fights would you nominate instead?

The full list of their nominees is here: http://espn.go.com/blog/dan-rafael/post ... minees-are

Fight of the year - Travis Dickinson v Matty Clarkson

expe wrote:Fight of the year - Travis Dickinson v Matty Clarkson

Good shout. Far better action than Gamboa-Crawford in my opinion.

I also added KO of the year and for me that would be Lee-Jackson.

Thomas Williams Jr -Cornelius White
Bob Ajisafe-Dean Francis
Anthony Crolla-John Murray
Travis Dickinson-Matty Clarkson
Robert Guerrero-Yoshihiro Kamegai
Nicholas Walters-Nonito Donaire
Timothy Bradley-Diego Chaves

crusader wrote:Boxing Writers Association of America.

I would use that vomit emoticon right about here if we had one.

crusader wrote:Which fights would you nominate instead?

Anything with actual quality on it. Not a C class fights. For example:

Froch v Groves II
Crawford v Gamboa
Walters v Donaire
Kovalev v Hopkins
Klitschko v Pulev

I think fight of the year is largely chosen based on entertainment value, and often the most entertaining bouts aren't contested between elite competitors. The fights obviously have to be high-profile enough for a certain number of people to see and hence nominate/chose them though.

I enjoyed the BWAA nominated bouts overall far more than I did the bouts you've listed. Obviously people's criteria varies, but for me entertainment is weighted more heavily than skill or the bout's profile.

crusader wrote:I think fight of the year is largely chosen based on entertainment value, and often the most entertaining bouts aren't contested between elite competitors. The fights obviously have to be high-profile enough for a certain number of people to see and hence nominate/chose them though.

There are youtube fight videos with more views then those fights. We should put those in the list then. Better still, vines! In other words, I dont find entertaining when two unskilled man hit each other.

crusader wrote: I enjoyed the BWAA nominated bouts overall far more than I did the bouts you've listed. Obviously people's criteria varies, but for me entertainment is weighted more heavily than skill or the bout's profile.

Are you seriously telling me that if next year you had a choice to see those 5 or my 5 fight you would chose the former? Would you rather see Brizuela then Kovalev?

Tarkus wrote:

crusader wrote:I think fight of the year is largely chosen based on entertainment value, and often the most entertaining bouts aren't contested between elite competitors. The fights obviously have to be high-profile enough for a certain number of people to see and hence nominate/chose them though.

There are youtube fight videos with more views then those fights. We should put those in the list then. Better still, vines! In other words, I dont find entertaining when two unskilled man hit each other.

crusader wrote: I enjoyed the BWAA nominated bouts overall far more than I did the bouts you've listed. Obviously people's criteria varies, but for me entertainment is weighted more heavily than skill or the bout's profile.

Are you seriously telling me that if next year you had a choice to see those 5 or my 5 fight you would chose the former? Would you rather see Brizuela then Kovalev?

Not seen Walters-Donaire or Crawford-Gamboa, but I'd have no interest in watching the others back again, with the possible exception of Klitschko-Pulev for the knockout, Froch-Groves 2 was a pretty dull fight, lots of jabs, very cagey and few exchanges, putting it on a fight of the year list is stupid when you look at some of the other fights that have taken place this year, I like a technical battle but that one was just boring.

There are youtube fight videos with more views then those fights. We should put those in the list then. Better still, vines! In other words, I dont find entertaining when two unskilled man hit each other.

I suspect that the professional boxers who participated in the bouts above are far more skilled than people who engaged in street fights posted online, which obviously aren't pro boxing matches and thus not eligible for the award. If you want to weigh the overall quality of the fighters so heavily that boxers in the BWAA nominated fights can't win the award, fine, but that's not what I do.

Are you seriously telling me that if next year you had a choice to see those 5 or my 5 fight you would chose the former? Would you rather see Brizuela then Kovalev? :

I thought I made it clear that I preferred the BWAA list. For me fight of the year is mainly about fights, not names.

Fight of the year - Orlando Salido vs Terdsak Kokietgym followed by Tommy Coyle vs Daniel Eduardo Brizuela and Travis Dickinson vs Matty Clarkson
Fighter of the year - Manny Pacquiao
Upset of the year - Tommy Karpency vs Chad Dawson
Trainer of the year - Freddie Roach. Great/very good performances from Pacquiao and Cotto, also Zou Shiming showed a lot of improvement for his age this year
Knockout of the year - Mickey Rourke vs Elliot Seymour. Scary KO

My favourite fight of the year was the insane brawl between Kongfah Nakornluang and Den Baansuan Samlansaraburi (Den Sithsaithong) also really enjoyed Koki Eto Vs Ardin Diale.

From those listed it's got to be the Takayama Vs Rodriguez fight.

For what it's worth the BWAA and Ring are both irritating bunch of pudenda who seem to give American boxing a HUGE bias.

No Gonzalez or Amnat in the Fighter of the Year category (why is that still being announced when a potential candidate still has a fight left anyway?)

No mention for Shingo Inoue as trainer of the year (he could have taken one novice to being a double world champion and another novice to having beaten a world ranked and a former world title challenger inside a year)

Manager of the year should at least give a mention to Hideyuki Ohashi and Michael Aldeguer.

BWAA might as well be rename the "Boxing Writers who only watch American Boxing"

Unlike crusader I think Gamboa/Crawford was the fight of the year. The skill level was high and the punches had consequence. I hate watching a fight in which both guys land 500 punches. It might be entertaining to some, but that tells me that scoring really had no value.

fergusg wrote:I've just read Dan Rafael's tweets about the BWAA nominations for Fighter of the Year... so what exactly did Pacquiao do in 2014 to deserve his nomination?

He merely beat a guy he'd already beaten in a comfortable manner, but was robbed by the dodgy judges' scorecards... and he also beat a guy that nearly every single person on the planet expected him to dominate with ease.

I'm a self-confessed Manny Pacquiao fan, but even I'm mystified about this nomination?

He's Manny. Dan and ESPN are biased towards HBO/TR.

BAD INTENTIONS wrote:Unlike crusader I think Gamboa/Crawford was the fight of the year. The skill level was high and the punches had consequence. I hate watching a fight in which both guys land 500 punches. It might be entertaining to some, but that tells me that scoring really had no value.

I don't think a particularly high amount of skill was shown after the third, and certainly very little was shown by Gamboa. Once Crawford hurt Gamboa the latter's legs were gone and he did virtually nothing but swing in place, while Crawford seemed to realize that he was getting the better of exchanges and hence kept to trading power shots without using many of the skills that he is generally known for; I believe this is also a large part of why this bout was considered far more entertaining than most of Crawford's fights. You mention that the blows had consequence, but Gamboa's shots seemed to have virtually no effect on Crawford other than a brief spell in the final round, and the blows in most of the other bouts certainly had consequence given the numerous knockdowns, which unlike Crawford-Gamboa were scored by both fighters. You also tend to decry praise of fights that are particularly brutal, yet Gamboa got pummeled over much of the bout and was getting hurt and dropped repeatedly.

It's hard for me to see how Crawford-Gamboa should be fight of the year when it was largely a one-sided beatdown after three rounds.

If you want skills and competitiveness at the highest level you need to check out Kosei Tanaka vs Ryuji Hara. It was high paced, high skilled, excitexciting and very even. Great bout but not a war.