Floyd Mayweather Jr. wins 2012 "Best Fighter" ESPY

Who cares what scrubs this "Jon Jones" beat in an inferior sport?

Why are we validating and legitimizing MMA as though the talent and competition level can be put up on a pedestal with boxing?

Why aren't K1 kickboxers eligible to be nominated? Surely Giorgio Petrosyan ought to have at least been nominated following his stellar years in both 2009 and 2010.

How about IKSA tournament winners? Where are all their nominations? How is it that MMA is valid but they aren't? Ohhh...right...about it being a popularity contest. Convenient for MMA fans to bring up when they don't like that a boxer won...but suddenly inconvenient when we examine why there were two MMA nominees in the first place and why the award has been co-opted to make room for the fad by corrupting its origins as "Best Boxer". Thankfully no mixed martial artist has actually won the Best Fighter Award to date, but the mere fact that they've changed the name of it and included so many of them on the ballot as nominees is yet another slap in the face to boxing and an example of ESPN bowing obsequiously to what's trendy.

Why are we assuming there is no bell curve and lending the accomplishments of MMA fighters the same weight as the accomplishments of boxers?

If you perform in such an inferior sport, you need to accomplish not just twice as much, not just 5x as much, but like 10x as much to get the nod over someone equivocally dominant in the superior one. :deal

 

atsch

Because MMA isn't the more popular sport among the unwashed masses, right? :nut


Because there is a MMAist alive who is actually a better fighter than either Mayweather or Pacquiao, right? nut

 

No, he won it for winning every round against both Mosley and Marquez that year.

As has been reiterated several times now already, the ESPYs don't go by the typical calendar year of January through December. The year goes from July to June. (so any achievements from the time of last year's awards up through a few weeks before the current year's awards are eligible for consideration..)

So Floyd only competing once in a calendar year still means he can squeeze in two events in a 365-day period. This doesn't necessarily disadvantage MMA guys either, because they could realistically have twice as many matches over the same span. Four in twelve months isn't unheard of.

And based on some comments from British posters here, I was under the impression that UFC, Tapout and the like were very much on the rise and all the rage in the UK? :think

Of course it's been massive here for years now and is unquestionably more prevalent in the media than boxing, even if the latter has two household names.

 

Well I fundamentally disagree with both of those statements, for a start.

I had it 116-112 so one might call it close in rounds, but of the few Cotto nicked on my card two were close. He only had a couple that were clear, whereas Floyd had several. This was also the best Cotto seen in the ring in many years. Also needs to be factored in that Floyd was able to pull out a performance like that (to counteract Cotto's fine performance with the clock turned back) at his age and with his legs and reflexes visibly slowed from his prime. He has adapted his style to be able to still be effective at the highest level without some of the tools that got him there in the first place.

It was a highly laudable win, IMO.

As for Ortiz, he was the WBC welterweight champ and he got KTFO fair and square. :good

 

:good

Exactly. If you adjust for quality of sport, nobody in MMA really has a prayer of competing with the top boxers...no matter what they do within the confines of their infrastructure.