ESPN KO of the Year: Canelo Vs Kirkland

[Rip Chudd]

Yea I was thinking both of those but I can see going with Canelo because he is a much bigger name and it was a bigger fight certainly than Vincente-Dominguez.

Glowacki was a great comeback though, got to give bonus points for that and Huck was a top end cruiser.

Yeah you can tell he went with Canelo because of the bigger name but those other knockouts were better.

[Rip Chudd]

Exactly the big stage and it was a savage brutal KO. Well deserved.

It was against James Kirkland. Ishida even stopped him

[b00g13man]

There were sicker KO's this year imo, but this was probably the most high profile one.

[Sweet Pea 50]

Can't really bitch about it. As others have said, Canelo is one of the biggest names in the sport, and Kirkland was knocked out for that ass.

Ugonoh's KO of Quarrie deserves a shout out.

[Eff Pandas]

Does ESPN got a boxing staff that votes on this stuff or is it just Dan?

Definitely my choice for KO of the Year too doe.

That Edwin Rodriguez vs Michael Seals fight would get my KD of the Year award if that was an award. I think the final KD & KO wasn't THAT interesting, but there was crazy ass KD's before it.

[HanzGruber]

oscar sure sent alot of money to espn this year

[about.thousands]

Man, they're going all out to promote Canelo as the next big thing.

They're doing it so that if/when GGG beats Canelo then they can say GGG beat the best boxer, the 2015 fighter of the year, they 2015 KOTY. I noticed Canelo and Cotto started showing up on ppl top 10 p4p list as their fight got closer. That's why Canelo won fighter of the year even though Fury was an underdog and beat the most dominant HW of this era and beat Dan's personal #1 p4p fighter. GGG vs. Canelo will be promoted as the two best fighters in the world fighting each other. While we all know Ward vs. Kovalev will the two best boxers fighting each other.

[bigdunny1]

It was against James Kirkland. Ishida even stopped him

So? That's the reason it was not for fight of the year award and was for KO of the year instead. And other KO canidates were in small arenas in fights few fans saw. This was in a full baseball stadium in a broadcast on HBO that did their best live viewership in 10 years. It was one the most brutal KOs of the year and seen by probably 10x the amount of fans as any other leading canidate. Kirkland got ko by Ishida going on 5 years ago and many winners of this award were given to guys who have been kod before. For example Marquez was not the first to ko Pacquiao and Pacquiao was not the first to ko Hatton and Lewis was not the first to ko Tyson. Yet those guys won Knockout of the year.

[Redd Foxx]

I can immediately think of two others I was more impressed by, but this was the fitting of the award because it wasn't just the punch itself that made this the KO of the year, it was the way it came across. It was dramatic the way Kirkland's jaw twisted, he fell like a sack of potatoes, and laid there for quite a while. I credit excellent photography (and replays) as a big reason why it came off so dramatically.

[Rip Chudd]

So? That's the reason it was not for fight of the year award and was for KO of the year instead. And other KO canidates were in small arenas in fights few fans saw. This was in a full baseball stadium in a broadcast on HBO that did their best live viewership in 10 years. It was one the most brutal KOs of the year and seen by probably 10x the amount of fans as any other leading canidate. Kirkland got ko by Ishida going on 5 years ago and many winners of this award were given to guys who have been kod before. For example Marquez was not the first to ko Pacquiao and Pacquiao was not the first to ko Hatton and Lewis was not the first to ko Tyson. Yet those guys won Knockout of the year.

So in other words it's a popularity contest. That's all you had to say. There were a few better KOs on the list, but Canelo won due to popularity. I don't care if 17 people saw a different KO, if it was more impressive then it's the better KO.

Not to take anything away from Canelo, because it was a good knockout(against a guy who is chinny). Not KO of the year IMO, but this was given by ESPN. I'll give an example: When I saw the Canelo vs Kirkland fight and James got knocked out I thought it was a good knockout and James was alright. When I saw the Vicente vs Dominguez KO I was literally concerned for the guy's life, that's how brutal of a KO it was, so it's the more impressive knockout