13.12.06 – by Yero Moody: My fellow fight fans, it is the end of the year and a time to reflect on the good and the bad performances of the year. The best fighter of the year in this writer’s opinion is Manny Pacquiao. Two dominating performances against a former top ten pound for pound fighter is quite astonishing indeed. Manny may not be as highly skilled as Bernard Hopkins, Shane Mosley, Floyd Mayweather or Oscar De La Hoya but he is very well conditioned and comes to fight all 12 rounds of every fight.
I do predict however, that due to his fighting style which exhibits little defense and constantly coming forward that he will be beaten by a good defensive counter puncher. A close second place for fighter of the year is Bernard Hopkins. He successfully added 15lbs. of solid muscle and moved up to light heavyweight to fight the best light heavyweight fighter and undisputed champion at the time, Antonio Tarver and totally and thoroughly dominated him. No one saw this coming and very few people predicted a Bernard Hopkins “execution”. Truly an amazing accomplishment after having dropped two of his previous fights to Jermain Taylor..
Lets get to the nitty gritty. Who was the worst fighter of the year in 2006?
Based on the hype surrounding these fighters and their past performances I submit four candidates:
Antonio Margarito, Ricky Hatton, Floyd Mayweather and Jermain Taylor. Lets begin with the pound for pound best fighter in the world right now, Floyd Mayweather, Jr. In only his second fight at welterweight he took on the former undisputed champion of the division Zab Judah and thoroughly dominated him. His latest victory came via unanimous decision against the recognized linear welterweight champion of the world ( by way of beating Zab Judah) Carlos Baldomir. He won all 12 rounds on two of the judges cards and 11 of 12 on the third judges card. Mayweather received harsh criticism for not exchanging more with Baldomir and some accused him of running. Compubox stats tell a different story however. He landed over 199 punches! I’ve never ever in all my years of watching fights saw a fighter land that many punches running from their opponent. Its impossible.
Many people thought that Mayweather should have easily knocked out Baldomir due to his obvious dominance. With all the self- proclaimed greatness and hype surrounding Mayweather the fight did not live up to expectations, thus I had to include him as one of the finalist for his performance against Baldomir.
Jermain Taylor has to be included as a finalist because he fought a smaller, brawling opponent in Kassim Ouma, that was supposed to be tailor made for him to get a stunning knockout victory in front of his hometown crowd. It turned out to be nothing of the sort. The audience witnessed a wild swinging Taylor looking to land a knockout punch for most of the first have of the fight and the second half of the fight he was out of gas throwing very few punches. If we hadn’t seen Taylor look much better in his previous fights against Winky Wright earlier this year and Bernard Hopkins last year he could easily have been mistaken for an up and coming fighter making his debut against his first known opponent.
Ricky Hatton made his debut at welterweight earlier this against lightly heralded WBA champion Luis Collazo. This fight was supposed to potentially place Hatton in a position to face Floyd Mayweather, Jr later on in the year or early 2007 and boost his credibility in the U.S. Hatton came out smoking landing an early controversial knockdown but faded tremendously in the later rounds. He won the fight but did not accomplish either of his goals. A dejected Hatton stated after the fight that he needed a few more fights before facing the likes of a Mayweather and proceeded to move back down to 140lbs.
Last but not least is the man who has declared himself as the best welterweight and the most feared man in boxing, Antonio Margarito. He recently faced Joshua Clottey a couple weeks ago in what was supposed to be an electrifying fight with two hard hitting fighters. The first 4 rounds were dominated by Clottey in stunning fashion. Clottey, known as an awkward fighter seemed surprisingly sharp and landed almost every punch he threw at Margarito. At the end of the fourth round Clottey suffered an injury to his left hand and when he came out in the fifth round he just stopped throwing punches which prompted the commentators at showtime to suggest he might be playing opossum to attempt to lure Margarito in. However when he went back to his corner he was clearly grimacing in pain and said that he injured his hand. From that point on he was only able to land his left hand very sparingly and Margarito took over the fight and won. His performance drew huge criticism because he didn’t thoroughly dominate a lightly heralded one handed fighter.
The hype that Margarito and Arum have created has caused alot of people to pay more attention to him which is what they intended to have happen. Most people were not mentioning his name until the infamous offer of $8 million to Floyd Mayweather to fight Margarito that Floyd rejected.
And the Stinker of the Year Award goes to……. Antonio Margarito and Ricky Hatton! Its a tie. Margarito failed miserably in his attempt to transcend from slightly above average to elite. He was hit from every angle with almost every punch that was thrown his way by Clottey. I can only imagine the horrific beating he would take at the hands of an elite fighter like Oscar De La Hoya, Shane Mosley or Floyd Mayweather. I also think he would lose to Paul Williams, Miguel Cotto, Fernando Vargas, Cory Spinks and Zab Judah as well. In 2007 Margarito has the opportunity to showcase his skills or lack thereof against his mandatory challenger Paul Williams. Better luck next year Antonio.
Ricky Hatton also failed to impress. He was billed as the next big threat to possibly defeat Mayweather. Many felt as though he did not do enough to take the champion’s (Collazo) belt. Although I do believe he won he showed that he is not what he was built up to be. His lack of defense and rough house tactics were reminiscent of a bar room brawl rather than a showing by a well honed highly skilled athlete. He too would be beaten rather easily by Mosley, De La Hoya, Cotto, Mayweather, Spinks and Judah. He made a wise move going back down to 140lbs. Better luck next year Ricky.