2016 Fighter of the Year Anyone But Andre Ward!
By: Ken Hissner
In looking over the new and defending world champions WBC/WBO super lightweight champion Terence Crawford, 30-0 (21), out of Omaha, NEB, was 3-0 with a pair of ko’s in 2016.
The only other “champion” with 3 fights was Andre Ward who won a disputed decision over Sergey Kovalev who also had 3 fights. A fair decision and Kovalev would be a shoo-in for Fighter of the Year. This should never get “Fight of the Year” for Kovalev got hugged more (46x) by Ward then he does by his wife.
IBF super welterweight champion Jermall Charlo, 25-0 (19), out of Houston was 2-0 winning a close decision over former champion Austin Trout and stopping previously unbeaten Julian “J-Roc” Williams.
New WBC Super flyweight champion Roman Gonzalez, 46-0 (38), of NIC, had his toughest fight of his career stepping up a division winning a hard fought decision. He was 2-0.
Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, 36-0 (33), holding the WBA, WBC and IBF middleweight titles stopped a pair of unbeaten boxers with records of 36-0 and 18-0 to expend his knockout streak to 23.
In the cruiserweight division there were 3 new champions. Tony “Bomber” Bellew, 28-2-1 (18), won the vacant WBC title and was 2-0.
Murat “Iron” Gassiev, 24-0 (17), of Russia, won the IBF title over Denis Lebedev who didn’t have his WBA title on the line.
Oleksandr Usyk, 11-0 (10), of UKR, won the WBO title and went 2-0.
Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, 48-1-1 (34), the WBC/WBO Super welterweight champion went 2-0 but pushed back his bout with GGG a year.
So who do you think should be awarded “Fighter of the Year?”
