2014 Fighter of the Year: Naoya "Monster" Inoue

Pacquiao has about 28% of the vote. Gonzalez 3%. :wall

 

I knew the fanboys would skew the vote somehow.

In fairness his win over Bradley was probably one of the best of the year but not enough to surpass many the others on this list

 

have to give the froydians props over the pacpards for being reasonable and not voting for 2 fights against that knucklehead maidana.

 

1) Naoya Inoue
2) Sergey Kovalev
3) Manny Pacquiao

 

Pacquiao may have too many votes but it's not as ridiculously high as Mayweather has with 1.

I don't recall Amir Khan's punching bag Devon Alexander being a candidate in 2012 when he shut out Maidana and winning the IBF title and nor should Mayweather in 2014.

 

The greatest defeated name on that list is Bernard Hopkins. Regardless if the other 2 names Kovalev beat weren't well known. It's the manner in which he beat hopkins. The only other person to have beaten BHop clearly, without question, was RJJ.

 

Pac's year and May's were actually very close. (Pac's was better, though not by THAT much... the gulf between he and the guys ahead of him - Inoue, Crawford, Gonzalez, Kovalev, and technically even Ruenroeng - is much bigger)

 

Hopkins is greater than Narváez but if you want to use manner of victory as criteria Inoue KO2 Narváez is way more impressive than Kovalev outpointing Hopkins (even as impressive as that is)

 

seriously? any other welterweight/light middleweight decisioning Maidana twice (and not remotely close to spectacularly btw) would be little more than an afterthought for fighter of the year, whereas anyone taking the very good boxer, p4p Bradley's zero would at least be a given on the list.

 

Bradley's 0 was pretty worthless considering Pacquiao deserved to take it in their first meeting and plenty seemed to feel Provodnikov should have taken it...

 

and furthermore, Golovkin's beating down Adama, Geale & Rubio like they'd never been beat down and embarrassed before is far better than what Floyd did with the plodder Maidana twice.

 

pac beating timmeh alone deserves him the Fighter of the Year.

 

ya, i had Pac winning the first Bradley fight and the Provo/Bradley fight a draw or Provo edging but a p4p zero is a p4p zero. one could say floyd's 0 is worthless because of the Castillo fight using your logic.

 

Thing is, no offense, but among the majority of serious, non-biased fans known to be diehard followers of the entire sport ('from the feet up', that is, every division, straw through heavy) there was a very clear standout in 2014 and his name is Naoya Inoue. Anybody suggesting another candidate or even that it could be construed as being a 'tight race', I have to question whether they indeed have any knowledge of the lighter weights and with that a semblance of appreciation for what Inoue did. With that knowledge I simply fail to see how anyone could think it was a tight race and not a runaway lock for Inoue.

a) Pacquiao deserves extra credit in particular for the rematch over "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"- even though most felt Pacquiao already should have gotten the nod over him in a previous calendar year? :huh

b) Golovkin's manner of victory is being taken into account, I believe. At least, on my ledger. The quality of competition still just isn't enough, with that dominant manner of victory factored in, to place him in the upper echelon of 2014. His year was among the best dozen or so - maybe even ten - in the sport, but some others were just as dominant over better opponents. Notably Inoue, and, bringing us to your third shout...

c) Kovalev. You don't think manner of victory plays in with him virtually shutting out Bernard Hopkins? Yes, some felt that Father Time might catch up with the Alien, but Kovalev was expected to be the "puncher" in this match-up, not to outbox Hopkins and prove his superior in every aspect of the game. Hopkins was still beating titlists and ranked contenders at the weight as of the last couple of years heading in. In terms of quality of competition, even adjusted to factor in manner of victory, Kovalev schooling the old master blows away Golovkin's wins - all three of them, combined.

Do you just not follow the lighter weights or something? All three of your mentions had very good years but still less than Crawford's - let alone Ruenroeng's (on paper), Gonzalez's, or especially Inoue's.

 

Yes, seriously. Maidana was on a great run at welterweight, and clearly not the same guy under Garcia that once upon a time looked a clueless lummox against Devon Alexander. Knocking out JSK and Josesito and whipping Broner's tush proved the improving Maidana's current h2h worth. It was a good win to notch once, let alone twice (and running away with it the 2nd time). Not up there with finally snatching Bradley's zero, but it rates somewhere in between that and snatching Algieri's.


I did say that Pacquiao had a clearly better year than Mayweather. They're just closer to each other than Pacquiao is to, IMO, the real leaders in this race.