Andre Ward: Manny Pacquiao Is The 2019 Fighter of the Year...

I do think its damn close between Canelo n Pac. Hard to split em for me.

Due to Pacs age and Thurman being relatively young and undefeated, I suppose he edges it for me.

 

Clenelo vs Sergey Shotalev was the fight with the David vs Goliath narrative. However, whilst the former was giving away a significant amount of height to the way past his best 36 y/o drunkard Russian with terrible stamina who was 4-3 in his last 7 fights, had been stopped in 2 of those losses by relatively light punchers, and only narrowly escaped a KO loss to a rank novice who'd never fought anyone with a pulse in one of those wins, which would've made him 3-4 in his last 7 fights with 3 of the losses via stoppage, and had only really hurt and dropped one opponent in his last 5 fights (and said opponent is chinny), the Ginger Clebuterol Toad who is built like a tank and weighs about 180lbs on fight night and has a 70.5'' reach. Kovalev weighed just under 180lbs for the Eleider Alvarez rematch and 182lbs for Yarde and would've been about the same for Clenelo. And Kovalev has a 2'' reach advantage over him but Clenelo had six years in youth on him.

And the very quick turnaround so soon after the gruelling fight against Yarde which he came within a whisker of losing was hardly ideal for Kovalev either.

Whereas, conversely, Manny was 40 y/o, giving away at least 10lbs to One Time (so that's about 2 actual weight classes not a couple of pounds max for Clenelo vs Kovalev), a couple of inches in height, 3.5'' in reach, and 10 years in Youth.

And Thurman was undefeated, 30 y/o, still had his power, isn't a drunk with shitty stamina, obviously hadn't been stopped by 2 relatively punchers in recent years, and in terms of the respective fighter's size, weight, and reach is much more of a David vs Goliath scenario only difference being David was a 40 y/o senior citizen facing an undefeated prime Goliath whose power was still very much intact.

Fair enough One Time had been inactive and injured prior to losing to a OAP leprechaun. However, that's not nearly enough to convince me Manny's win over him doesn't>>Clenelo's over Kovalev.