Tell that to any of Sven Ottke's opponents. It absolutely does matter. You don't think 70k British fans screaming at the top of their lungs everytime Joshua throws a punch doesn't influence the judges? Have never heard the term hometown decision before?
That's not how FOTY works though. It's about achieving the unexpected, about being in career-defining fights, about altering the landscape of a division, and about how much a fighter has boosted their status. Canelo has done great this year - not taking anything away from him. Unifying 168 is a historic achievement and fighting three times (after fighting Dec. 2020) is excellent too. If Joshua had beaten Usyk I would agree with Canelo for FOTY, But can you really say "I can't believe he managed to beat Plant? How on earth did he beat Saunders? etc.? Did Canelo really improve his status anywhere near as much as Usyk did? We already knew Canelo was the best 168lb'er on Jan. 1 2021 due to his accomplishments in previous years. The biggest boxing result of the year is Usyk over Joshua, and in my opinion that makes Usyk FOTY. AJ is a huge star (more well known than Plant, Saunders and Yildirim combined) and therefore him losing sent shockwaves through the boxing world (especially the casuals, but there you have it). Had Plant upset Canelo, I'd be happy with Plant being FOTY. But the achievement of beating Plant <<< the achievement of beating Canelo.
I can say exactly the same about Ukraine. Joshua is MUUUCH better known here than Canelo ever was, and it was like that for many years. AJ's fights were broadcasted here even before he won the ING title in 2016
To put it in perspective, GGG’s run in 2015(Murray, Monroe, Lemieux, yeah Saunders is better than all of them, but Avni is far worse) was similar to Canelo’s this year minus the undisputed crown. And Golovkin wasn’t even top3 that year in FOTY votings. Fury with his win over Wlad, Floyd with his win over Pac, Canelo with his win over Cotto and Chocolatito also going 3-0 including a win over Viloria were ahead of him. Usyk gets my vote this year.
AJ has beaten Wlad, Povetkin, Whyte, Parker, Fat Andy, Pulev and Takam at HW At SMW Caleb Plant has beaten Uzecat, Caleb Truax and Subway Mike Lee BJS 2.0 has beaten Shefat Isufi, Marcelo Coceres and a shot Martin Murray and looked crap at the weight Usyk beat AJ on a deck which was stacked heavily against him Clenelo has the most stacked deck in the game Usyk was giving up huge physical advantages to three-belt unified champion who even now sports a KO 84% and could've taken his head clean off with a single swipe Clenelo fought two guys who weighed about the same as him with KO45% and KO54% Now park your asses back down
If we're counting Smith in December, Canelo... If we're not counting Smith, Usyk. My rationale is that 3 unifications against solid opponents > 1 legendary win, but 2 + Yildirim doesn't quite cut it. Also, Smith was the most dangerous of the 3 by far, a fact we tend to forget as Canelo beat the **** out of him.
Not really, Smith was already looking too big for the weight. He had a very challenging fight against Ryder before Canelo. Then as I recall Canelo was leaving it hanging in the air til the last minute on who he would ordain to fight next. So, if you factor in a short camp for a guy looking too big for the weight and it kind of explains why Smith looked a shell of himself in there that night. Or he took a massive bung. One or the other. But hey, Canelo still did what needed to be done to collect the belt.
1971 - Joe Frazier 1972 - Carlos Monzon 1973 - George Foreman 1974 - Muhammad Ali 1975 - Muhammad Ali 1976 - Wilfred Benítez* 1977 - Carlos Monzon* 1978 - Wilfredo Gómez* 1979 -Sugar Ray Leonard 1980 - Thomas Hearns 1981 - Sugar Ray Leonard 1982 - Aaron Pryor* 1983 - Marvin Hagler 1984 -Thomas Hearns 1985 - Michael Spinks* 1986 - Mike Tyson 1987 - Thomas Hearns* 1988 - Mike Tyson 1989 - Roberto Duran* 1990 -Julio César Chávez 1991 - James Toney 1992 - Riddick Bowe 1993 - Evander Holyfield* 1994 - George Foreman* 1995 - Nigel Benn* 1996 - Evander Holyfield 1997 - Evander Holyfield 1998 - Floyd Mayweather 1999 - Lennox Lewis* 2000- Erik Morales* 2001 -Bernard Hopkins 2002 -Vernon Forrest 2003 - Lennox Lewis* 2004 - Glen Johnson 2005 - Erik Morales* 2006 - Manny Pacquiao 2007 - Floyd Mayweather 2008 - Manny Pacquiao 2009 - Manny Pacquiao 2010 - Serigo Martinez 2011 - Andre Ward 2012 -Juan Manuel Márquez 2013 - Floyd Mayweather* 2014 - Sergey Kovalev 2015 - Floyd Mayweather* 2016 - Carl Frampton 2017 - Terence Crawford* 2018 -Oleksandr Usyk 2019 - Manny Pacquiao* 2020 -Teófimo López 2021 -Oleksandr Usyk My picks for fighter of the year for the past 50 years. This wasn't a super in depth list so I probably got some things wrong. *times when I disagreed with ring mag. I avoided giving it to multiple fighters for a single year.
I have a hard time giving Fighter of the Year to a man who had just one fight. For me that eliminates Usyk, Fury and Taylor. That being said, I would certainly give Usyk Achievement of the Year and Performance of the Year if those were awards. What Usyk pulled off was a major accomplishment achieved at a very high level. I couldn't pick Jake Paul and I tried to find an option not on the poll's list but I had no luck. That leave's Alvarez and his three title defenses as well as unifying the super middleweight belt.
You DO realize you're actually PRAISING Canelo. What Mike did was over 35 years ago. He didn't say Canelo was the ONLY one. He said the LAST TIME...........lmao
He said he bets CST can't find such an example, while I literally needed less than one second to find it. And yes, I consider Canelo a great fighter, future HOFer. But he isn't an outstanding, one-in-a-generation fighter like some of his fans try to pretend he is
