By Lyle Fitzsimmons

If you’ve gotten to this point and aren’t happy, it’s your own fault.

You should have seen it coming.

As has become tradition in this Tuesday morning space come early July, we celebrate the New Year’s midway point with a status report on the predictions made six months earlier.

It’s been, as you’ll see as you continue, a forecasting year to, well… disregard.

But hope springs eternal. So in the recurring quest to match the glory of our spot-on advance pick of Andre Ward as fighter of the year in 2011 – we’re taking our lumps for errors and steadfastly hanging in there for the back half of 2016.

Unlike football, baseball, etc., there were no master schedules from which to pluck events.

And even if I’d been prescient enough to know exactly which fights would be made between which guys last January, there's always a chance that three people sitting on the ring's perimeter would pound my brilliant forecasting into dust with their definition of what constitutes a “boxing lesson.”

But those are excuses and gripes for another day. Today is a day of assessment, and with that, here are recollections on and updates to the stories that I promised other boxing scribes would write about at year’s end.

COMEBACK OF THE YEAR
January prediction: Wladimir Klitschko
“Finally motivated by a quality opponent and obviously ornery thanks to near universal rejection from the media, the Ukrainian debuted as a 40-year-old in violent style – nearly decking (Fury) in the opening round and pressing the action over the next four frames before finally inducing a mercy stoppage in the sixth.”

July reality: Manny Pacquiao
It would surprise precisely no one if he fought again, but if Manny Pacquiao sticks to springtime guns and rides off into the sunset as emperor of the Philippines, he’ll do so with a positive competitive taste in his mouth. His early April defeat of a supposedly reinvented Tim Bradley erased some sting from last year’s blockbuster against Floyd Mayweather Jr., and if he finds that the adoration of millions pales in comparison to punching people in the mouth, it also provided pay-per-view options for future victims.

UPSET OF THE YEAR
January prediction: Tim Bradley W 12 Manny Pacquiao
“Though nearly everyone was tuned in to see the Filipino’s victorious swan song, it was the Californian who stole the show, outhustling his 37-year-old foe in nearly every round on the way to the single most decisive verdict of the suspect trilogy – getting the nod by across-the-board scores of 118-110.”

July reality: Joe Smith Jr. KO 1 Andrzej Fonfara
Just when you thought it was safe to buy stock in a light heavyweight not named Sergey Kovalev, the Polish-born Windy City resident’s value plummeted. Fonfara had been considered a tough nut to crack after going 12 losing rounds with Adonis Stevenson and coming back with wins over the likes of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Nathan Cleverly, but it took all of 152 seconds for the unheralded Smith to reduce him to penny status while boosting his own prospectus for the future.

KNOCKOUT OF THE YEAR
January prediction: Shawn Porter KO 8 Keith Thurman
“Thurman wobbled his shorter, more muscled foe in the seventh round, then spent his tank in a failed effort to finish the show. He was clearly a compromised product come the eighth, and had little to reply with when Porter landed two booming rights in the initial 90 seconds. Two knockdowns later and ‘Showtime’ was the king of the young lions.”

July reality: Canelo Alvarez KO 6 Amir Khan
Admit it, after weeks of railing that Alvarez was a coward/fraud/other for taking a fight with a guy who’d never ventured beyond welterweight, you sat back and looked at your scorecards through five rounds and gasped. Not only had Amir Khan not collapsed upon catching a whiff of Alvarez’s aura, he’d boxed well enough to find himself in a competitive fight. Until, well… he wasn’t anymore. One right hand separated the “King” from consciousness and set forth a wave of macho post-fight chatter that’ll yield an anticipated match later this year between Alvarez and, ummm… Liam Smith?

FIGHT OF THE YEAR
January prediction: Danny Garcia KO 11 Robert Guerrero
“(Garcia) battered the comparatively old – at age 32 – Robert Guerrero through five rounds, then was forced to prove his welterweight mettle when the bloodied and swollen ‘Ghost’ followed his typical script and began returning fire with a defiant sneer. The action continued in to-and-fro style into the would-be championship rounds, before a single left hook from Garcia left the ex-featherweight in a motionless heap along the ropes in Round 11.”

July reality: Keith Thurman UD 12 Shawn Porter
At long last, we boxing fans woke up to a pleasant morning after. In fact, rather than the walk of shame prompted by sought-after fights underperforming, the duel between Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter warranted nothing less than a stride of pride. The 12-rounder at Barclays Center was not only competitive from first bell to last and maintained a level of excitement that left 12,000-plus fans – not to mention a few media guys – short of breath, but the reaction from both combatants in the afterglow was that they’d welcome the chance to do it all again.

FIGHTER OF THE YEAR
January prediction: Andre Ward
“It was all forgiven by the end of 2016, though, when the light heavyweight fight nearly everyone was drooling over – a showdown with fellow HBO centerpiece Sergey Kovalev – was signed, sealed and delivered. And after 12 rounds of intermittent fencing, slugging and moving with the big Russian, it was clear the cagey Californian had re-ascended the sport’s pound-for-pound mountain.”

July reality: Undecided
Though many of the world’s top pound-for-pound commodities have scored single impressive wins thus far in 2016 (Crawford, Kovalev, Ward, etc.), it’d be a stretch to suggest that any have done so over foes who warrant excessive celebration. Fortunately, many of those same notable fighters have more substantial tests scheduled for the year’s back half (Crawford-Postol, Kovalev-Ward, Ward-Kovalev), so the selection come Christmas time should be far clearer than it is on Independence Day.

And if Ward really does in November what we suggested he’d do in January, the presents are on us.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

This week’s title fight schedule:

MONDAY
IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight titles – Ekaterinburg, Russia
Sergey Kovalev (champion/No. 2 IWBR) vs. Isaac Chilemba (No. 11 WBO/No. 10 IWBR)
Kovalev (29-0-1, 26 KO): Eighth WBO title defense; Nine KOs in 10 scheduled 12-rounders
Chilemba (24-3-2, 10 KO): Third title fight (1-0-1); All three career losses at light heavyweight
Fitzbitz says: Chilemba may be a nice guy and a national hero, but he’s got no legitimate business in the ring with a wrecking machine like Kovalev. This will be a brief tune-up at best. Kovalev in 4

Last week’s picks: 2-1 (WIN: Freshmart, Argumedo; LOSS: Taconing)
2016 picks record: 49-11 (81.6 percent)
Overall picks record: 781-259 (75.0 percent)
 
NOTE: Fights previewed are only those involving a sanctioning body's full-fledged title-holder – no interim, diamond, silver, etc. Fights for WBA "world championships" are only included if no "super champion" exists in the weight class.

Lyle Fitzsimmons has covered professional boxing since 1995 and written a weekly column for Boxing Scene since 2008. He is a full voting member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Reach him at fitzbitz@msn.com or follow him on Twitter – @fitzbitz.