The Ring Magazine Fighter of the Year award has been running since 1928.

What the **** did he do in 63? The Liston fight was 64.

 

Actually, the '72 award was a tie between Ali and Carlos Monzon and to tell you the truth, I thought Ali deserved it outright. Monzon put his title on the line 4 times that year which was great, however, greatness doesn't begin and end at the title. Ali, as a contender, beat Mac Foster, George Chuvalo, Blue Lewis, Jerry Quarry, Floyd Patterson and reigning light heavyweight champ Bob Foster. 6 times to the post in one year against top contenders. Contenders that Joe Frazier should have been defending against, not organ banks like Terry Daniels and Ron Stander. Ali was doing the champion's job that year and again, I thought he deserved the award outright.

 

Yeah the '63 Clay award is weird. Knocked out Charley Powell in 3, which is what he should have done. Then had a couple of shockers against Jones & Cooper. Must have been someone else with a more impressive year. Maybe it was because he was becoming a crossover star in a sport that was looking pretty marginalised. Made his first Time Magazine cover that year.

I seem to recall that he was going to be FOTY in '76 but had it revoked because of the Inoki farce. Is that right?

 

The Ring used to really be The Bible of Boxing then Dela Hoya took it over fired all the good writers & turned it into GBP's propaganda rag. Bet poor old Nat Fleischer turned in his grave

 

The story with the Inoki farce was that they came to Ali & said the fight would be fixed & to rehearse it. Ali immediately objected saying he'd never fix a fight & Inoki had to go for real. Thats why it ended up with Inoki laying on the floor kicking Ali's legs. He made a mess of them too

 

He has a decent argument for 66, 72, 74 and 75 but not 63 or 78.

 

Didn't the ring magazine go out of business for a short period, think it was back in 89? And sure they stopped doing the fighter of the year for a period after that?
Not sure, could be the old memory playing tricks!..

 

The criteria for the Ring awards was very loose back in the day, as well as there being an overwhelming bias towards the heavies. The inconsistency is difficult to reconcile looking back, but the same applies equally to whenever All-Time rankings were put together. I suspect they didn't put that much thought into it, and the focus was probably going to be on fights and fighters they had seen.

I suppose Clay winning in 63 makes more sense in the Bizarro world where Clay-Jones was the FOTY.

Giardello would have been the obvious choice for Fighter of the Year in 63. Beat Tiger (1962 winner) and Robinson.

 

Thanks Mark, I do recall few months there was no ring mag, thought we'd seen the last of it.

 

I thought Ali deserved the FOTY for '66, but like Momus said, Giardello deserved it for '63. I also thought Wilfredo Gomez should have got it for '78.

 

Yes, I don't think they suggested that the award was for his achievements. He was cited for "the interest and excitement he brought to boxing".

For what it's worth the runners-up, in order, were Liston, Griffith, Giardello, Ortiz and Jofre.