:nono They did a poll of who the people thought were going to win and how...and somewhere like 70% of people thought he was going to inw by KO and he did...although exciting...definitely not something awestriking Pac on the other hand was given slim to none chance of winning and came and brutalized DLH... Miles above? :bart Don't think so...
I think there's a difference between a poll/general opinion (it was 60/40 on this board BTW) and actual capability of a fighter in a given stage of his career. I dare to say I saw DLH's serious decline (for Chrissakes, watch the Forbes fight, he fought a C+ level feather-fisted PacMan-sized opponent and got tagged time to time), and it turned out to be reality. DLH proved once he's an excellent fighter and people expected that DLH and refused to put the Forbes fight in perspective. Cotto and Mijares proved THIS YEAR that they are the fighters people think they are (Judah/Mosley/Gomez in 12 months, Navarro/Munoz in 6 months), not years back. In between the Mayweather fight (where DLH clearly looked over the hill) and Forbes, he aged like 5 years. Stunning. I don't think he aged much between Forbes and PacMan, just the opponent was different: the P4P best fighter insted of the C+ level, cool guy from The Contender. I think why Vic wins here is not the Mijares/DLH performance comparation, but the fact I scored JMM-PacMan II in favour of JMM, so that given performance (pretty good by PacMan) is not as good as Darchinyan' given performance vs. Mijares - of courne not, he lost on my card, and the thread asked MY opinion on FOTY. And JMM was the only elite and capable opponent PacMan faced this year. His biggest opponent in December was the weight, and Pacquiao won by brutal KO. But body building is hardly rateable on boxing boards. I think many boxers would've beaten DLH on that night, including some fast and slick fighters from lower weight classes. Like Holyfield-Valuev, even HUGE weight and size difference can be easily neutralized by speed and movement, and in a horrible performance, Holyfield still won like 9 rounds of 12... DLH was awfully slow. Not compared to PacMan, but compared to any elite fighter out there.
In defense of Wlad, he has had 3 straight title defenses in this past year and he won all of them by KO. Margarito had won two title belts consecutively and he won 3 straight fights since losing to Paul Williams.
Well then Baldomir shouldve won Fighter of the year because he beat Gatti and Judah, but lost to Mayweather. You can't win fighter of the year being a loser -- Good effort ... Hopkins might have even been robbed, but he lost a fight this year. 1. Pac 2. Margarito 3. Wlad Klitschko 4. Calzaghe 5. Dawson
I think Pacquiao is clearly fighter of the year, Margarito is a solid second. A lot of people are underestimating Darchinyan though, he had an excellent year. He deserved the win over Gorres, then proceeded to utterly dominate two of the best fighters in his division (one of which he was a severe underdog against). Besides those them these fighters also had strong years (In no particular order): Wladimir Klitschko Joe Calzaghe Bernard Hopkins
Thank you. So should I base MY PERSONAL PICK of FOTY (which this thread is about) on other people's (judges') scorecard, instead of mine? I think if something, that is dumb. Would you ask those 80% of experts to do the same who had JMM winning? I had Calzaghe beating Hopkins comfortably. I still wouldn't ask those who had Hopkins winning to base their opinion on the judges or my scorecard. If you have problem with my pick, simply ignore me. Having a different opinion than your hardly makes me dumb.
Calzaghe got a split decision over a 43 year old Hopkins, in a fight that a lot of people thought B-Hop won, and he beat Roy Jones, a guy who was shot to **** about five years ago. Calzaghe has done nothing to deserve fighter of the year. At least Bhop schooled Pavlik, that performance eclipses anything Calzaghe has done this year.