With the 2025 boxing calendar now halfway complete, BoxingScene is checking in with its staff to identify the early front-runners for our annual awards. Today, we consider the Fighter of the Year.
More BoxingScene 2025 midyear awards:
Jake Donovan: Dmitry Bivol has the best singular win this year, but I’ve always favored activity when another candidate has also beaten top competition. Junto Nakatani has two knockouts over consensus top 10 bantamweights, including Ryosuke Nishida in a near universally regarded one-vs-two matchup for the division’s lineal championship.
Tris Dixon: This is hard enough to do when we’ve had 12 months of the year given the inactivity of the major names. Dmitry Bivol avenging Artur Beterbiev has him up there, and so do the victories Junto Nakatani has had. They are one and two for me.
Lucas Ketelle: No one has jumped out and snatched the award, but I believe unified bantamweight titleholder Junto Nakatani is the front-runner right now. Nakatani has two stoppage wins in 2025, making a title defense against David Cuellar, then unifying his WBC belt with the unbeaten IBF titleholder Ryosuke Nishida. David Benavidez, Jaron “Boots” Ennis, Vergil Ortiz Jnr and Dmitry Bivol have great wins, but I favor activity combined with accomplishments.
Eric Raskin: Over the course of a full year, I’d be very reluctant to give the award to a fighter who competed only once. But in a half-year, one performance is plenty. Given the stakes and the quality of opposition, Dmitry Bivol making the adjustments necessary to closely but clearly defeat Artur Beterbiev is the performance of the half-year – and therefore Bivol is my fighter of the half-year.
Ryan Songalia: I’m gonna go with Junto Nakatani. I think he’s overdue for a major award, and he’s been active against high quality opposition, knocking out two unbeaten opponents – David Cuellar and Ryosuke Nishida – while unifying two of the bantamweight titles. Dmitry Bivol deserves credit for avenging his loss to Artur Beterbiev; that's a far more marquee victory, but Nakatani is doing special things at 118lbs.
Elliot Worsell: Dmitry Bivol beating Artur Beterbiev is probably the best win any fighter has recorded in the first six months of the year, so I’d go for Bivol.
Owen Lewis: He might not have dispatched as accomplished an opponent as Dmitry Bivol did, or fought as often in 2025 as Junto Nakatani has, but Jaron “Boots” Ennis looked lethal in his sixth-round stoppage win over Eimantas Stanionis in April. Ennis has gotten a lot of flak over the past couple years, and he put the criticism to rest by taking Stanionis apart. Bonus points for announcing the move to 154lbs, where I hope he can get a marquee fight in the second half of the year (preferably Vergil Ortiz) that could strengthen his case further.
Matt Christie: I’m in the Dmitry Bivol camp for this one. Nakatani has looked excellent against some of his closest rivals at bantamweight, but he was a healthy favourite heading into both of his victories. Bivol, meanwhile, was coming off a loss to the man he defeated. Beterbiev had never been beaten before and was regarded as one of the finest fighters in the entire sport before Bivol crafted his latest masterpiece.
Lance Pugmire: With two title defenses by knockout in the bank and a willingness to fight undisputed junior featherweight champion Naoya Inoue, unbeaten bantamweight Junto Nakatani is the choice for me. Should he finish the job in the second half of the year, that would allow for a meeting of two of the past three Boxing Writers Association of America fighters of the year in 2026.
