Fighters you think should've been fighters of the year but never were....

Shane Mosley - I'm surprised the year he beat ODH he wasn't fighter of the year.

I don't think Tarver was ever fighter of the year.

I don't know. Is there anyone you think should've been fighter of the year at least once who never won the distinction?

 

Hmm, there's probably quite a few but i can't recall year by year which fights were candidates that lost.

However if you read Ring's fight of the year winners you'll find a few fights that were given the distinction much moreso because of the 'event' than the fight itself.

One of the most obvious examples being Ali-Foreman.

Edit:

oops, i thought the title read "Fight of the Year"

 

Mosley had a great 2000 but was he more deserving than Trinidad, who beat two titleholders at 154? Shane beating DLH was better than beating Vargas, but beating Reid was better than beating Diaz, and Thiam was a better win than Wise.

 

Foreman-Frazier 1 won FOTY, and that was a one-sided massacre. Back in the 70s they pretty much just gave it to any heavyweight fight. Young-Foreman over Saad-M.Johnson 1? Ali-Spinks 1 over B. Curry-Brooks (and Holmes-Norton)?

Also in 1996 they gave it to Holyfield-Tyson 1. No way was that a better fight than the likes of Barrera-McKinney or Gatti-Rodriguez. It wasn't even the best HW fight, Bowe-Golota 2 was better, despite its unsatisfying conclusion.

 

Yeah. Have to agree. It's tough to decide because you have to take into account everything that happened that year. Well, at least who the winner was that year.

I'm somewhat doubtful about some of the fighters, like SRL, who won fighter of the year several times. It seems highly unlikely they were truly the outstanding fighter of the year so many times.

It's amazing how many times Pacquiao has already been fighter of the year.

 

2002 – Vernon Forrest
2003 – James Toney (2)


I'm assuming 2002 Forrest won because of the victories over Mosley. I don't recall if he did anything else.

2003 - Toney's victory over Jirov?

Two examples i suspect might have had more worthy fighters but again i don't recall the exact time frame and who else was nominated.

 

Toney got it for beating Jirov and stopping Holyfield.

Forrest only had the two Mosley fights, but Shane was considered the best fighter in the world by many (which was ludicrous, Roy obviously was, but that's for another thread)

As for Tarver, he essentially had the honors locked up after his May KO2 of Roy Jones in 2004, but Glen Johnson threw a wrench in the works by scoring his own KO of Roy and then beating Tarver head-to-head when the met at the end of the year.

 

Lorenzo Parra in 2005. His year was outstanding.

 

Who won in 2005? Wasn't it Hatton? I think he won for Tszyu and Maussa. I can't remember though.

Unfortunately, guy like Parra, a flyweight who beat three good fighters no one has heard of, will ever win an honor like FOTY. It's a shame.

 

Not only did Parra win those fights, he won them all on the road, in the challengers home country. The Sakata rematch was one of the fights of the year and the Asloum fight had alot of underground hype surrounding it, because Asloum was very highly regarded at the time...and he was completely handled with relative ease by Parra.

Unfortunately, Parra burned out real quick and without any real acclaim to his record, he's already been forgotten about...yet in 2005, there was no better fighter, IMO.

And in '05 I believe Hatton got it, which was a real shame. Parra did what Tszyu failed to do (hometown of a real tough, up and coming challenger) and handled his business. Three differnt times. That is never easy and reminded me ever so much of what Brian Mitchell made a career of.

 

In order to win, you need a high profile win... which I can understand from sources like ESPN. But the Ring Mag? They should be above that. I doubt anyone with a vote saw any of those Parra fights.

 

The other top candidate in 2003 was Pacquiao. That was when he beat Barrera the first time.

 

Leonard won in 79' and 81' for Ring Magazine, and I think those were fair. He fought several times in 79' and capped it off with the win over Benitez. In 81, he beat Kalule and Hearns.

He did win KO Magazine Fighter of the Year in 87', and that's one I'd disagree with. Certainly worthy of Comeback of the Year for what he did against Hagler, but that was his only fight that year. Tyson won 4 fights in 87', including two unificiation bouts. Holyfield also won 4 fights that year, with one being a unificiaton bout.

 

after glen johnson and tarver had each knocked out roy jones, they were slated to fight to win the fighter of the year awards by the ring mag.

johnson ended up winning a close decision and thus won fighter of the year.

 

Roy Jones should have been fighter of the year in 2003 over Toney.

 

The close Tarver fight at the end of 2003 took a lot of the shine off his year.

 

It wasn't as close as Toney vs Jirov. It's just another instance of RJJ getting slighted because he was so dominant in years prior.

 

No. It wasn't. Jones had a world of trouble with Tarver, excuses or not.

 

I actually agree on the scoring... but Toney impressed vs. Jirov and Jones didn't vs. Tarver.

 

And Toney had more trouble with Jirov, so what's your point?

 

Jones didn't "impress" because he had been so dominant prior. He did show guts in that fight and won because he took chances late and got aggressive despite being obviously drained.

Toney impressed because he came into that fight in shape(for once) and gave more than he took. Toney took much more damage against Jirov than Roy did against Tarver.


Double standards in regards to Roy. No one can take that Tarver win away from him, especially in light of how his career has gone afterward.

 

Toney was supposed to have trouble with Jirov. It was considered a great win for him at the time.

 

No one is taking the Tarver win away from him.

The real crime that year, awards wise, was giving Fight of the Year to Gatti/Ward III over Toney/Jirov.

 

It still is a great win for him. Anyhow, in retrospect, can't we now conclude that Tarver was a viable opponent for RJJ and the victory was a good one for him. I'd go on to say that it was a better victory for RJJ than the Jirov win was for Toney.

Also, if the award was revoted on now, you'd still give the award to Toney????

 

Oh that was a crap fight compared to Toney/Jirov, no question. I was angry when the award was announced.

 

In retrospect, sure. But at the time, Jones stock had dropped coming out of the Tarver fight. Toney's stock shot way up after Jirov.

I really don't see the point in discussing how I would vote for the 2003 Fighter of the Year in 2010.

 

Yeah, it was a joke.

 

Just answer the question, it's a simple one. I thought RJJ should have won back in 2003 when the award was given out. IMO, I was proven right.

 

It has nothing to do with the argument I've been making in this thread though, it's completely irrelevant.

But sure, seven years later, a win over Tarver looks better than a win over Jirov. It didn't in 2003.

 

I thought that Roy beating Ruiz alone should have garnered him the FOY honors. Going back down and winning the light heavyweight title was just a bonus.