2014 Fighter of the Year: Naoya "Monster" Inoue

Agree with you. Great year for a late starter, but Inoue just pipped him.

 

Hopefully fanboys/trolls won't mess up the poll by voting blindly for Mayweather or Pac.


I feel it's a close year but my vote goes to Inoue. Two weight champion in devasting fashion and just over half a dozen fights on his record.

Second is probably a three-way tie for Crawford, Gonzalez and Ruenrong, with Kovalev and Pacquaio just a tier below those three possibly. It's a pretty open year.

 

Inoue had a really amazing year. 21 years old and the a bright future ahead of him. He's more deserving of prospect of the year than Beterbiev for sure. For FOTY 2014, I go with.

1. Kovalev
2. Crawford
3. Inoue

I can't wait for a potential Inoue/Gonzales showdown in the future. It's going to be epic.

 

Quick question about those who were campaigning @ light fly. What about Roman Gonzalez? You said that Adrian was consensus #1 but during what period of time specifically? Also, when exactly did Roman move up to flyweight?

 

It was a tossup between Inoue and Crawford for me, I narrowly went with Crawford.

 

Roman gone to Flyweight, he make intention clear to fight Yaegashi on same show Inoue beat Hernandez.

 

MVC! voted Floyd.

:verysad:verysad

 

Maybe Kovalev?

But no fighter stood out clearly in 2014.

 

Pacquiao
Golovkin
with KOvalev a close third.

Pacquaio for his unprecedented comeback victories, in particular over a top p4p and slick Bradley, who has a style many doubters once assured us Manny would not be able to deal with and would be "exposed" by.

Golovkin is being unfairly excluded here, since the manner in which a fighter dismantles his opponents should be taken into consideration in addition to who he fought. And his opposition is being underrated here by the usual haters of fighters with exciting styles.

KOvalev I would give more credit to, except his victory over Hopkins is not what people are claiming, since Hopkins has been feasting on Iraqi and Egyptian cab drivers for so long his late career was mostly smoke and mirrors. Still a solid schooling though of a once respectable fighter.

 

WBC you title get handed out like candy, just like PABA title that Samartlek held. Angelito Merin win title after Kantun, Melin very rubbish.

 

OPBF a lot more worth, similar to European title. WBC youth title, especially in lower weight, a bit useless. Some CP Freshmart fighter win them on debut against debutant.

Kantun win Youth title by beating low level fighter and narrow defend it against another. Nothing reign of nothing title.

Kantun Mexican he not fight for GAB title or PBF, or LuzPro (GAB the better of 3 Filipino title). Purisima win PBF whilst GAB held by Diale, much better fighter.

 

RE Budler-Not sure on that, beating Diaz (padded record Latin American who has lost when he's stepped up), Pigmy (the Thai equivalent) and Zhong (a few fights removed from him being battered by Novoa) looks good on paper (i.e. the numbers) but in reality wasn't that impressive.

 

No one takes the the Org. Asia titles seriously, just like no takes the WBO "European" title seriously. They are all pretenders to the OPBF title. You could compare anyone holding an "Asia" or "PABA" title to the OPBF champion in the same weight and almost all of the OPBF champions would be better.

Heck even boxrec don't recognise them all and I think they still like an IBF Asia category in their belt search thing.

IMO Youth titles should be based around the man that holds them, not the title. WBC Youth Minimumweight title was won by back to back debutants, 2 of the last 3 Flyweight ones were debutants as well,

They have had some really good ones, such as Brian Viloria, Tomoki Kameda, Leo Santa Cruz, Daniel Ponce De Leon, and others who are solid like Dmitry Kirillov, Jose Salgado. They have also had some awful ones, Arthur Cook anyone? Sergey Karanevich? Vasyl Klyusa? Marcos Primera [notably beat Curtis Stevens for the interim youth title]?

All those titles serve the same purpose, to get the orgs a bit of money and to get the fighter consideration for a ranking

I doubt anyone would defend Samartlek as a quality opponent and I think that's probably why Inoue himself said it was a "rubbish game" afterwards however the Monster did say he wanted to defend the title "like a champion" and then vacate it.