In 1933 no award was given by the Ring for Fighter Of The Year. Carnera had won the heavyweight title but was not considered because of his mob affiliations and fixed fight allegations. Max Baer ko'd Schmeling . Barney Ross beat Canzoneri,Petrolle,Sammy Fuller,and 4 lesser lights. Panama Al Brown had 11 fights including dominant performance over Johnny King in a title defence. Jimmy McLarnin ko'd Young Corbett111 in1 rd to win the welterweight title. Who is your choice?
Interesting one. Was it not awarded because of Carnera or any additional reason? Regardless, Ross should have won it. He beat Canzoneri twice which alone is justification but adding the Petrolle and Fuller wins makes it a lock.
Ross should certainly being in with a shot at winning it .He had a good year. Panama ,going by his success also would have been a worthy contender for it . Just shows how primo s dodgy fight s came back to bite him .
Carnera wasn't awarded the accolade because of the people associated with him and some of his "curious" ring encounters. This months Ring mentions it and invited several boxing people to give their retrospective opinions about who deserved the award. Nigel Collins voted for Max Baer Charles Farrell = Barney Ross Doug Fischer = Ross Tom Gray = Ross Thomas Hauser= Ross Don Stradley = Ross Springs Toledo =Ross Other candidates were Maxie Rosenbloom,& Jimmy McLarnin, Panama Al Brown,Max Baer.
I purposely did not open this link until I perused the top fighters of 1933 so I could look at this with a clean slate. And there was no doubt in my mind that this should have been awarded to Barney Ross. Amazingly, Maxie Rosenbloom fought 29 times in 1933, going 19-5-5. Wow! 29 times, or as we say today, an entire career.
I would have given it to Barney Ross even if Carnera is considered. Lots of wins, with two over Canzoneri. *on Carnera, I recall reading a Ring comment by Nat Fleischer back in the 1960's in which he stated the reason Carnera didn't get the award was because The Ring didn't want to highlight the Schaaf death. Whatever, my vote would have been for Ross anyway. Carnera over Ross is simply automatically favoring heavyweights over the lighter classes.
My fifty year old memory could certainly be wrong. The Ring staff in 2016, when they gave Ali the 1966 Fighter of the Year award retroactively, alluded to Carnera's mob connections as the reason he was denied the 1933 award. Interestingly for this thread, I came across a 2017 Ring Article which seemed to imply that Ross has been given the 1933 award retroactively. That does seem fair to me. He was a better choice than Carnera to begin with.
In the April 2018 issue, the article from which I lifted my post, states it was Carnera's mob association and "results" that decided no award would be given in 33.
