2014 Old-School Awards

Here, we honor fighters who do things that are unnecessarily badass. I look primarily at 2014, but their previous track record plays a factor. Consistency is important in determining which fighters are truly old-school.

For conspicuous g-ness above and beyond the call of duty:

Guillermo Rigondeaux
-Risked his life to even box professionally.
-Fights at his natural weight without cutting. Only the best p4p fighters in the sport can do this.
-Regularly inflicts DAMAGE on much larger opponents. Put him down and he'll break your orbital within the next 1-6minutes.
-Regularly makes larger champion fighters go into noob sparring mode. (For those of you who have never been noobs, noob sparring mode is when you realize you are outclassed in the gym by a better fighter and will be injured if you push your luck, but you don't want to look scared so you gingerly follow your opponent around to create the illusion that you want to engage while avoiding all engagement.)
-Offers to fight fellow champs 17 days after his next fight, before even fighting said fight.
-Passive-aggressive trolling of Bob Arum after the Donaire fight ("Let's see what Bob has next for me. Gonna be pretty good, right Bob? Just like you promised, right Bob?")
-Openly ducked by fellow champions in his division, all of whom are naturally larger, so he goes the old-school route: Takes his act overseas and fights anybody who wants some.

Naoya Inoue
-Had a 64% KO ratio in the amateurs, which is just weird, especially at the lighter weights.
-Went pro and refused to fight soft opponents or inconsequential fights. Started with two 8rd fights, two 10rd fights, and all subsequent fights have been 12rd.
-World title off #1 fighter in his 6th fight.
-Jumped up 2 divisions for a title off the #1 fighter in his 8th fight.
-Steamrolled Narvaez in 2 rounds, which even a noted p4p KO artist like Donaire couldn't do. Narvaez had only lost to Donaire and had not been stopped over a 46 fight career of defensive mastery.
-Is openly talking about facing Roman Gonzalez (noted p4p KO artist) this year. May even be on a collision course with Rigondeaux.
-Has taken the most g route in every instance. Can't even call it old school because it's nearly unprecedented.

Vasyl Lomachenko
-Insisted on being fast-tracked to world title in his 2nd fight.
-Went through with the fight even though his opponent was a known steroid cheat and a 3-time world champ with 54 fights who came in 2.25lb over weight despite trying to make it.
-Took over 498 punches to the testicles from that man (this alone should be enough to make the list).
-Refused to foul back because he considered it beneath his dignity.
-Fought for the title AGAIN in his next fight, dominating a man who was even money against him.
-Is open to fighting ANYBODY and shows zero signs of ducking.

Chris Algieri
-Was brought in as a sacrifice to Ruslan Provodnikov, a crazy-eyed Siberian moose-liver-eating machine with strangely-peaked biceps who looks like Azog the Defiler from The Hobbit, and was predictably crushed in the first round. But then a strange thing happened: He got up. He got up and outboxed the man who had taken 4 years and 9 IQ points off of Tim Bradley and made a guy like Mike Alvarado verbally quit. And he did it with one eye for 11 rounds. He won his world title the hard way.
-Was brought in again as a sacrifice, this time to the p4p #2 fighter in the world. Got off the deck 6 times in a fight he had absolutely no chance of winning.
-Is a gentleman and a scholar and an un-ironic connoisseur of fine suits and pink underwear.
-Is coming back for more.

Bernard Hopkins
-The man is like 50. Show him some goddam respect.
-This is another guy who doesn't cut weight to compete, so his opponents regularly enjoy a large weight advantage.
-He unified 2 world titles at the age of 49. He utterly dominated youngsters like Cloud, Murat, and Shumenov.
-Realizing that he had all the money, respect, titles, accomplishments, and ATG status he would ever need, he did what any sensible person would do: Attempted to unify a 3rd title against a guy who had killed a man in the ring. (And a guy who was openly being ducked by the lineal champion.)
-Despite being dropped early and having no success no matter what he tried, Hopkins stayed in there and kept trying til the final bell.
-Interesting stat: Kovalev's previous 14 opponents had been stopped. Even more interesting stat: All of them were younger than 49.
-Hopkins is planning to KEEP FIGHTING...with one condition: It has to be a big fight where he's the underdog. Old-school behavior from a guy who is the definition of old-school and g.

Steve Cunningham
-In 2013, he knocked Tyson Fury into a back-somersault despite being an undersized old cruiserweight.
-In 2014, he took a fight with the extremely scary, avoided, and dangerous Amir Mansour. The fight was awesome. Despite being battered and dropped twice in the 5th round, Cunningham found the resolve and stamina to come back, winning the fight with a desperate final-round knockdown of the iron-chinned Mansour. Sure it's one fight, but it had enough heart and nuts from both guys to get Cunningham on the list.

If I'm missing anybody feel free to add them.

 

Nah I just listed all the ones who I think are indisputably bada$$ and taking the old-school route. Hard to say who's the most g. But those are literally all the guys I know of that don't have a single mark against their g-ness.

 

True! Forgot about him.

 

Count it!

 

:huh Beterbiev isn't doing close to what Inoue and Lomachenko did...

Crawford...meh. That doesn't sound badass, it sounds like building a fanbase and having a hometown advantage.

McCall I'll give you. But he cried in the ring...