Who's the fighter of the year 2014

Terence Crawford was heavily favoured against all 3 of his opponents, and none of them was the no.1 in the division, not to mention the division is one of the weakest in the sport.

Sergey Kovalev had a very impressive win, but Hopkins was on very few P4P lists leading up to the fight and Kovalev was definitely favoured by the oddsmakers.

Pacquiao did defeat one highly-rated P4P fighter in Timothy Bradley but again, was heavily favoured in that fight.

I guess you could draw the following parallels:


Manny’s year is similar to Floyd’s 2013: where they beat one P4P-rated fighter impressively, but against which they were heavily favoured and one contender nobody took seriously. The difference I guess is that Floyd – Canelo was a huge event, even in the mainstream US, generated huge buzz, whereas Pacquiao – Bradley did not really fire up anybody’s imagination.

Crawford’s year is similar to Nonito Donaire’s year in 2012, in that he beat several quality contenders, all of which he was favoured against. The difference is that at least Nonito beat Nishioka who is a huge name in the recent history of the 122-pound division, whereas Crawford didn’t beat anybody you will call a memorable lightweight in a few years. Roman Gonzalez’s year can also fall into this category: decisively beating several decent contenders including the lineal champion of a division, but against which he was heavily favoured. Then again, out of 4 of his fights, two were against almost-nobodies, so only the wins against Yaegashi and Fuentes are really relevant to the discussion, whereas Nonito beat 4 full-fledged contenders.

Kovalev’s year is based on one very decisive victory against a household name who had proven to be a nightmare for almost everybody else. This sort-of reminds you of Adonis Stevenson beating Chad Dawson or Mayweather defeating Canelo, but then again Stevenson was the underdog against Dawson and he knocked Chad stupid, whereas Floyd – Canelo was, again, a case of huge media coverage and a fight of huge significance for the sport. Quality-wise, I think Kovalev beating Hopkins can be compared to Mayweather beating Canelo.

You could compare Sergio Martinez’s 2010 with the presumptive year of Naoya Inoue, in that Inoue is on course to possibly defeat two major titleholders, both of which he will have been a heavy underdog against, one of which would be a long-time undefeated player in world boxing (Paul Williams and Omar Narvaez respectively). However, Adrian Hernandez, whom Inoue beat for the WBC light-flyweight title, was no Kelly Pavlik and could be the most vulnerable titleholder in all of boxing. And Narvaez, although a history making flyweight and super-flyweight, is no Paul Williams, in that he is visibly old in the ring and is nowhere near the P4P top-10, whereas Paul Williams was no.4 or no.5 when Sergio annihilated him. Working for Ionue is the fact that he might pull this off in only his first 8 professional fights and at only 21 years of age.

 

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Inoue gets it for me if he convincingly beats Narvaez, who is probably the guy at 115 with due respect to Cuadras et al. Beating Hernandez for a world title in his 6th fight and a stay busy win make for a good body of work.

Otherwise Crawford. World level burns ceased to exist the moment Beltran broke his jaw in round 2 of their fight but Crawford still pretty much shut him out on the road. Gamboa despite being a bit undersized at 135 is still a legit win and I’d probably pick him against everyone at 130-135 save for Uchiyama, Garcia, Crawford and maybe Miura. With the Beltran win Crawford pretty much erased any doubt over who the man at 135 is.

I think those bodies of work put Crawford and prospectively Inoue ahead of Kovalev, whose year is really based on a single win (though it probably does go down as win of the year.).

Pacquiao and Walters round out my personal top 5.

 

Fury