BoxRec

I would like to know why the 1978 Ring Magazine's Fight of the Year goes to the Ali-Spinks 1 fight rather than the Holmes-Norton fight? They say that the Holmes-Norton fight was the true fight of the year and also the most exciting fight in 1978 they have ever seen. What the story of that?

Holmes vs Norton was the better fight to watch but Ali vs Spinks 1 was a huge upset... although Ali was acknowledged as a faded force no one believed that Spinks could beat him and so when he did and the manner in which he did it people got excited. The Ali vs Spinks1 fight is actually a good fight to watch as Spinks is coming forward all the time and Ali after doing little early starts trying for a ko in the later rounds... the last round was a great round as both went toe to toe and staggered eachother.... much like the last round in Holmes vs Norton.
All in all the Ali vs Spinks fight pipped Holmes vs Norton because it was a higher profile fight.... but Holmes vs Norton is the better match.
8)

Ring Magazine also has an annual Upset of the Year award - in this case they seem to have confused the 2 awards. A similar thing happened with Frazier/Foreman I, which was a big upset but too much of a one-sided blowout to deserve FOY status.

Personally for FIGHT OF THE YEAR OF 1978 I'd have voted for either Saad Muhammad vs Richie Kates or Saad Muhammad vs Yaqui Lopez 1... both unbelivable fights!.... both would be good contenders for Ko of the year too... especially the Kates fight.
Is there somewhere on the net where you can look up the list of the winners of Ring Magazines yearly awards???.....

http://www.ibhof.com/ibhfrmag.htm

It only has Fighter and Fight of the year info, though

silkov wrote:Personally for FIGHT OF THE YEAR OF 1978 I'd have voted for either Saad Muhammad vs Richie Kates or Saad Muhammad vs Yaqui Lopez 1... both unbelivable fights!.... both would be good contenders for Ko of the year too... especially the Kates fight.
Is there somewhere on the net where you can look up the list of the winners of Ring Magazines yearly awards???.....

Agreed. Saad Muhammad was probably involved in FOY between 1978-80.
Sadly though, heavyweights and heavyweight fights get a lot more attention than the lower weightclasses, even by boxing journalists who are well aware that the big boys seldom match the lighter guys in both skill and entertainment.
Spinks vs. Ali 1 was a rather dull fight in my opinion, and only a sensation because of the result, not the entertainment value.

I have The 1997 Ring Boxing Almanac which lists all the fights of the year, fighters of the year, upset of the year, round of the year and KO of the year since they started the awards. What do you want to know?

Alister

I wanted the list of the fights of the year since '89... but have got it now thanks to Broncano! .
It's true that the heavies too often overshadow the lighterweight fighters, especially those below Welterweight. While I like the big fellas when they are talented pound for pound the lighter weight fighters are nearly always superior in ability.
In fairness to Ring mag they did recognise the Bobby Chacon vs Bazooka Limon4 bout and the Chacon vs Cornelius Boza Edwards2 fight as the fights of 1982 and 1983!.... mind you theyed have been mad not to!!

Yeah, I discovered that they're not bad for their Fight of the Year award.
I must have confused it with their Fighter of the Year award which too often have been poor choices imo, far to often heavyweights have won it. For instance between 1949-1960, 9 of the 12 the Fighter of the Year awards went to heavies. Ingemar Johansson won it in both 1958 and 1959 for Christ sakes.
In 1978 Muhammad Ali got it, a year he went 1-1. Yes, he did regain the WBA championship, but only from a novice he should never have lost to in the first place.
I think to win Fighter of the Year one should at least fight three times against top opposition, and preferably suffer no losses, especially not upsets.
The Ring Awards voters obviously have a hard-on for heavyweights.

The Ali-Spinks duo overshadowed Holmes-Norton that year. Ali was still the big name and the loss to Spinks was shocking. But in hindsight I think we all can see that artistically and historically, Holmes-Norton has turned out to be the more significant fight. The public wasn't yet familiar with Holmes and Norton had been handed the title outside the ring (he was WBCs #1 contender but Spinks signed for rematch with Ali). So Spinks was regarded as the legit champ. As it turns out, Spinks was a one-hit wonder, Ali gave all he had left to regain the title, Norton never really contended again but Holmes became the dominant heavy for the next seven years. And the Holmes-Norton bout is still a thriller each time you watch.