By Cliff Rold
It’s surprising that there is even a debate.
2007, a year that should one day go down as the beginning of a boxing renaissance as long as the sport doesn’t find a way to implode in 2008, produced a number of contentious areas in the annual regurgitation-of-everything-everyone-just-saw period also known as end of the year ‘awards.’ Fighter of the Year really isn’t one of them. It’s the one spot that should be obvious. Like Russian President Vladimir Putin winning Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, the measurement of impact is all that is needed to overcome any sentiment in the decision making process.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. was the fighter of 2007.
Certainly the heavy handful of fighters who turned in outstanding, career-making years can all have a case made for them. Mayweather’s in-ring activity after all was no more or less notable than that of a Kelly Pavlik, Miguel Cotto, Takefumi Sakata or Joe Calzaghe. There were excellent wins in each of their stories that could easily cloud one’s judgment. This year in particular, wins are only part of the equation.
That said, Mayweather’s wins alone in 2007, over a still game and dangerous Oscar De La Hoya at Jr. Middleweight to the tune of 2.4 Million Pay-per-view buys and in a knockout defense of his Welterweight crown against the then-undefeated World Jr. Welterweight champion Ricky Hatton to the tune of 850,000 Pay-per-View buys, are enough to make a strong case for him. They don’t stand alone though, and the sales numbers aren’t the whole story either.
Mayweather’s impact on the game’s popularity and his emergence as a legitimate sports (not just boxing) superstar, at a time when it appeared no one could compete with Oscar as a legitimate mega-draw, can’t be understated. Those items, combined with his in-ring work, end the discussion.
All talk of crossover and box-office would be moot if Mayweather had failed to do the one thing he pulled off twice in 2007. He had to win, not only for himself but also to make good on the word-of-mouth he brought to bear.
Boxing has looked long and hard through most of the last ten years for new, sustainable superstars. Fighters like Wladimir Klitschko, Fernando Vargas, Shane Mosley, Felix Trinidad, Zab Judah, and Ricardo Mayorga all fleetingly looked the part, capturing mainstream attention that evaporated under the heat of foes that, while better in the ring, often lacked the drawing power and charisma to continue the momentum their more famous foes had built.
Everyday fight fans can enjoy great upsets and allow them their own momentum inside the confines of the game. The growth and prosperity of the sport though often rests on roping in new fans, or bringing back those who used to be avid followers, to the fold. Those more casual viewers haven’t seem as impressed by moments like Cory Spinks decision win over Ricardo Mayorga or Klitschko getting leveled by Corrie Sanders and Lamon Brewster. They’d heard the names of new stars being built and tuned in only to see them fold at the moments that were supposed to be their coronations. To the unlearned eye, it became all too easy to assume that boxers, not just just boxing, weren’t elite athletes anymore.
Even Oscar, in many respects, fit that mold throughout his career. Just when it seemed he could truly become the next Sugar Ray Leonard, he was on his bike blowing a seemingly sure win against Felix Trinidad in 1999. The way the sporting world views greatness can often be fickle, but it’s not impossible to define. Oscar missed greatness that night, and for much of the rest of his career, even as he maintained really good-ness.
Coming into 2007, Floyd Mayweather’s potential greatness was already a discussion in the boxing world. The crossover to mainstream recognition was the issue at hand.
Floyd, inside the ropes and all over TV as a personality, finally exploded onto the eyes outside of boxing. Wins over De La Hoya and Hatton did not secure him greatness, but that they were wins means that, unlike so many of his contemporaries, he did not disappoint the hype surrounding him. That he also starred in two popular HBO 24/7 reality series (in the role of storyline cultivating, flippant bad guy) and put himself out there as the face of the sport before the 20-30 million viewers that tune in to ABC’s Dancing with the Stars (playing the diplomatic gentleman wherever he could), showed a man who wanted the responsibility of both expectation and emissary.
Regardless of the endeavor, the average viewer of any sport wants to see greatness. Even America’s most popular sport, professional Football, has ridden the New England Patriots undefeated season to higher than normal ratings. Floyd was put front and center this year to remind the entire world, and not just the avid niche of boxing fans, that the potential for greatness still resides in the squared circle as well. In stopping Hatton, he even delivered thrills almost equal to the fights hype, giving newer fans an even greater incentive to tune in than the appreciation of maybe-greatness: entertainment value.
Think back to where boxing was at the beginning of the year. The threat from MMA; the nonsense hype about boxing being on its deathbed…that Boxing thrived under such conditions is a great story on its own.
It’s a story that would have Floyd Mayweather on the cover as the new face of boxing.
2007 was “Money’s” year. To argue otherwise just doesn’t make cents.
Other Notable Fighters: There were of course the other notables this year. Youngstown, Ohio’s Kelly Pavlik (32-0, 29 KO) scored three scintillating knockouts in a row, the final of those three in capturing the World Middleweight Championship Jermain Taylor (27-1-1, 17 KO). Of all the fighters to emerge as future crossover mega-stars, the 25-year old Pavlik has the greatest potential of them all. Sure, he gets knocked down. But he also gets up and so far has nuked his best opponents. If his promoter, Top Rank, can secure the Ohio stadium fight and network TV they want for him, and if he continues to perform in devastating fashion, Pavlik could one day set sales records that Oscar and Floyd only dream about…
Puerto Rico’s Miguel Cotto (31-0, 25 KO, WBA titlist) emerged as the number one contender to Mayweather at Welterweight and as proven big-time New York City ticket-seller this year against former World champions Zab Judah (36-5, 25 KO) and Shane Mosley (44-5, 37 KO). Both of those bouts also did solid numbers on pay TV; in fact, the numbers were quite comparable to those Floyd posted prior to his bout with Oscar. Any talk from Mayweather that Cotto wouldn’t fetch him the dollars he wants is just that. Senseless talk. Or, given Cotto’s recent form, could it be whistling in the graveyard? No fight needs to happen more in 2008 than Mayweather-Cotto and, if Mayweather is active next year and does not face Cotto, he’ll earn the wrath that follows…
World Super Middleweight king Joe Calzaghe (44-0, 32 KO) of Wales fought twice but only one of them counted, that against number one contender Mikkel Kessler (39-1, 29 KO). His mastering of Kessler marked him as the finest champion in the short history of the 168-lb. class and, with living legend Bernard Hopkins (48-4-1, 32 KO, Ring Magazine Light Heavyweight titlist) all but signed for a Light Heavyweight showdown in April 2008, Calzaghe finds himself with plenty of room for growth in Boxing history…
Finally, Flyweight Takefumi Sakata (31-4-2, 15 KO, WBA titlist) of Japan avenged three of his four career defeats in the best year of his career and one of the best years any Flyweight has had this decade. He began by upending an out-of-shape Lorenzo Parra (28-1, 18 KO) in three rounds. That Parra, who had narrowly defeated Sakata twice before, came in two weight classes over the 112 lb. limit makes that win questionable. His decisive rematch win over excellent former Jr. Flyweight titlist Roberto Vasquez (24-2, 17 KO) however was one of the best fights of the year and a redemptive moment for a fighter who had always come up just a hair short against elite competition. He ended the year with a draw against veteran contender Denkaosan Kaovichit and may be in line for a Japanese superfight next year against Koki Kameda.
Fight of the Year: Kelly Pavlik KO 7 Jermain Taylor
While I reside in the minority against a sea of those choosing the Jr. Featherweight rematch war between Israel Vasquez and Rafael Marquez, I’m going with Pavlik-Taylor as the Fight of the Year. Ultimately, each battle gave fans their money’s worth and then some but while the crispness and sustained violence of Vasquez-Marquez II is impossible to ignore, so too was the nature of Pavlik-Taylor. Put another way, this bout told a magnificent story.
Upstart challenger faces heavily suspect, and corporate hyped, champion. Challenger wins the first round but hits the deck hard and barely survives the second. Challenger comes back to commandingly win the third round. The battle goes back and forth for the next three rounds before an explosion in the seventh leaves the champion in the arms of the referee. It was that sort of Hollywood script stuff.
In deciding between those two bouts, I asked myself and ask you now constant reader: which fight from 2007 is the most likely to still be talked about with excitement twenty years from now?
It’s a question of weight divisions really. Put another way, how many more conversations have you had about Marvin Hagler-Tommy Hearns than you have Wilfredo Gomez-Lupe Pintor? In choosing between two outstanding fights where there really isn’t a bad choice, my answers to those questions frame the result you see here.
That said, I don’t have time to list all of the runner-ups to those two wars. Boxing in 2007 produced more than a dozen fights that anyone could argue as being the best they saw. From Michael Katisdis-Graham Earl at the start of the year to Miguel Cotto-Shane Mosley at the end, this was a year that proved Boxing’s vitality by reminding viewers of its most redeeming qualities in the ring.
And the Rest…
Round of the Year: Israel Vasquez-Rafael Marquez II (3) - While I chose Pavlik-Taylor as a slightly greater fight, the redemption of a Vasquez (42-4, 31 KO) who had stopped on his stool in the March 2007 encounter with Marquez (37-4, 33 KO) was made complete in this epic frame, the best of all their rounds so far in contest of the World Jr. Featherweight championship. It was three minutes of sustained and escalating violence as defined by its action as it was by its incredible precision and skill. I can’t wait to see these two consummate Mexican warriors do battle once again in 2008…
Upset of the Year: Daisuke Naito-Pongsaklek Wonjongkam III – Lots of folks are going with another Flyweight bout in this spot (one I’ll get to in the next paragraph). I can’t agree. Japan’s Naito (32-2-2, 20 KO) had been stopped twice already, once in first round record time, by the then-lineal (and WBC) World Flyweight champion Wonjongkam (65-3, 34 KO) of Thailand. Accordingly, most considered this fight a mandatory challenge joke going in. That Naito stepped in, and stamped out Wonjogkam’s record for consecutive title defenses (17). over 12 rounds to seize the title as his own was one of the best purely fistic stories of the year. That he weathered an outstanding ninth round where Wonjongkam came near to stopping him for a third time was an even better story of the character of the champion he became that night…
KO of the Year: Nonito Donaire-Vic Darchinyan (KO 5) – The ‘other flyweight’ bout is this one. The wrong choice for upset of the year, it is the right one as the best knockout of the year. Donaire (19-1, 12 KO) was expected to be cannon fodder for the mad bombing IBF titlist Darchinyan (29-1, 23 KO) but instead became the cannon. Leaping in blind with a left hook/uppercut from his southpaw stance, Darchinyan didn’t see the short counter left hook from the Filipino Donaire until it was too late. Darchinyan’s belligerent post-fight interview only increased the entertainment value of the moment; it may have been the best post-fight interview since Marlon Starling got clocked by Tomas Moliares a generation ago. Given the right opponents, the 25-years young Donaire could ride this fight onto some pound-for-pound lists over the next couple years.
Closing thoughts on 2007, and what to look forward to in 2008, next week.
Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com
