Inoue wins Ring magazine fighter of the year

Easy pick this year, Inoue had an outstanding year with Fulton and Tapales to unify 122.

 

That was the fight mate.

Great night.

 

Both his fights were arguably better than the Spence win. He was going up in weight, against the best in the division, who came to perform, and he dominated and knocked them out. Spence was like a rabbit in headlights, the moment got the better of him and his performance was subpar. He was once p4p, but not in that fight. Easy to pick Inoue in this unless you are a tribal racist.

 

Well deserved, the Fulton win for me was particularly impressive as it posed a new stylistic challenge for Inoue. I don’t think it would have been fair to give it to Crawford although he was the only other real contender.

 

Crawford always had the diva side to him from blaming TR for not making him a star due to racism no less. It could have nothing to do with the fact that when Bob put him on PPV he managed to get himself booed with a stinker against Postol & he does little to promote himself. If you want to be the face of Boxing then I am sorry its not enough to win, you have to entertain the fans in ring or out of the ring (Mayweather played the heel outside the ring while putting on stinkers in his Money phase) or both. Bud was even backing Shakur after his stinker against Edwin saying he got the win & that's all that matters, 0 respect for the fans who pay your bills

He was tweeting heavily saying he should be FOTY, wouldn't be surprised if he goes on a rant now, the quiet before the storm

 

Don't see how it could have been anyone else given his 2023.

 

Such a great fighter. Would have been great in any era and as a classic fan I don't say that lightly. Will be in the HOF someday

 

The obvious choice, thoroughly deserved.

 

No argument there, Inoue deserves it. Crawford should have stayed more active and fought another top opponent rather than living off of one great win.

 

Well deserved.

 

To be fair - yet again, Bud is trapped by his promoter. Bud is contractually required to rematch Spence who activated their clause. And then PBC went under bc its a sh1tty promo company...now Bud has to wait for the Amazon thing to play out.

Bud has terrible promoter luck

 

Crawford smashed the #4 PFP fighter in the world in what was one of the most lopsided wins in a P4P matchup for the undisputed championship.

The last time I can recall a fight like that happening has to be Pavlik BHop in the sense that it was an utter and thorough whooping. Cotto and Margarito were competitive for the 1st half while Bud and Spence were competitive for only 1 round.

Bud had an ATG performance that will age like wine.

With all that being said, Inoue is a stud and already an ATG imho. He's a 4 weight champion and 2nd male ever to be undisputed in 2 weight classes (in 4 belt era). Bud took 5ish years to achieve that (lots of fighters/champs ducked him to be fair) but Inoue needed only 1 year to unify all belts at 118 and 122...no soft touches. Stunning.

Inoue is FOTY and Crawford is performance of the year.

 

...you sound like a sour PBC stan

Sadly, Bud had no say in getting a 2nd fight in 2023. Has been the theme of his career. Damn shame