A look-back at 2013 with a nomination, one for every month in the calendar:
Fight of the Year: Timothy Bradley’s decision over Ruslan Provodnikov. In an era when memories last about as long as a tweet, a Fight of the Year is often about timing. To wit: If it happened late in the year, it gets votes becauseit’s still remembered. In part, that tells you how good Bradley-Provodnikov was. Nothing that followed the March classic could surpass it.
Good Guy Award: Bradley. A fractured business could learn from him. He was a target for the social-media cowards who attacked him in the wake of a controversial decision over Manny Pacquiao. It would have been easy to wallow in bitterness. But he didn’t. Bradley emerged as a winner, with two narrow decisions in the ring and a unanimous one out of it.
Statesman of the Year: Vitali Klitschko. The retired heavyweight champion is the courageous face of the opposition party in the Ukraine .
Smartest Guy In The Room: Paulie Malignaggi. Media critic and Showtime analyst, Malignaggi exposed Adrien Broner as flawed in losing a split decision. Marcos Maidana finished the job on Dec. 14, in a dominant decision over Broner, the Upset of the Year.
Three Reasons Not To Believe The Headlines: Broner, Canelo Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. All three were shown to be over-rated, over-hyped and — in Chavez’ case — over-fed. Floyd Mayweather Jr. made Canelo look like Robert Guerrero. Here’s hoping Chavez got a Jenny Craig gift card for Christmas. He never made weight for Bryan Vera. Never intended to. Then, he got an early Christmas in September with a gift-wrapped decision over Vera.
Promoter of the Year: Mayweather. He’s grown into the role. The annoying trash-talk has subsided. He’s transformed himself into a singular pay-per-view franchise. He managed to land a Showtime contract worth a potential $250 million, or the reported price that Amazon owner Jeff Bezos paid for The Washington Post. Mayweather, also a contender for Businessman of the Year, is smart to stay out of the troubled media business. Then again, he already owns Showtime.
Matchmaker of the Year: Canelo was marketed as a threat, but Mayweather knew better. He’s a great judge of talent and danger. To wit Antonio Margarito: Mayweather was smart to never have fought him. It can be argued that the beginning of a Pacquiao decline started with the brutal blows he sustained in beating Margarito in 2010. For all of those pound-for-pound lists, a good guide is a list of those Mayweather won’t fight.
Craziest Quote of the Year: There are always a lot of contenders for this one. In 2013, however, the over-the-top prize belongs to Angel Garcia, one of boxing’s crazy dads who deserves serious Trainer of the Year consideration for his work with son Danny. Before his son beat Argentina junior-welterweight Lucas Matthysse in one of the year’s biggest upsets, Angel Garcia went patriotic: “Everybody wants to have their Argentine flags out, but they forget where they live. We represent the USA. Danny is an American fighter. Background is Puerto Rican and I’m Puerto Rican. They say the American fighters can’t fight. The USA gets no props. The same country that sends the welfare check to you. You get that check and sign it, don’t you? Then, you want to be an Americanito.”
Rest In Peace: Ken Norton, Emile Griffith, Tommy Morrison and Jake Matlala. Norton, a former heavyweight champ who had the style to beat Muhammad Ali, died on Sept. 18. He was 70. Ex-welterweight and middleweight champ Emile Griffith, remembered for a 1961 fight in which Benny Paret died after questioning Griffith’s sexuality, passed on July 23. He was 75, Ex-heavyweight champ Morrison, who denied he had the HIV virus, died on Sept 1. Ex-flyweight champ Matlala, one of Nelson Mandela’s favorite fighters and best known for upsetting Hall of Famer Michael Carbajal, died on Dec. 7. He was 51.
Tragedy of the Year: Frankie Leal. The junior-featherweight died on Oct. 23 at a San Diego hospital, three days after he was knocked out in Cabo San Lucas. He was 26. It was a death that could have been avoided. Leal was a tragedy waiting to happen. He was hospitalized in March 2012 when he was carried out of the ring on a stretcher after Evgeny Gradovich knocked him out in San Antonio.
Move of the Year: China. Top Rank’s Bob Arum has placed a big bet on Macao, the gambling district near Hong Kong. Will it work? Hard to say. As an emerging market, China has no rivals. But whether that market includes boxing is still a great unknown. A sign of that uncertainty was raised when Arum announced that Pacquiao’s next fight would be back in Las Vegas after mixed signals in the reported pay-per-view of audience of about 500,000 for his victory in Macao over Brandon Rios in late November. There’s a lot of potential money in China, but boxing’s proven bucks and reliable infra-structure are still in Vegas.
Trend of the Year: Fighters from the post Soviet Union. They weren’t going to China. Instead, they were moving into the U.S. market. Their collective face is already this corner’s choice for Fighter of the Year. Gennady Golovkin’s emergence, proven by a reported audience of 1.41 million for his last appearance on Home Box Office, is evidence that fighters from Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and Siberia can make it in the U.S. Look for an even bigger impact in 2014 from several, including Siberian welterweight Provodnikov, Russian light-heavyweight Sergey Kovalev, and featherweight Vasyl Lomachenko, a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
