Comments Thread For: BWAA 2018 Winners: Usyk, Hurd-Lara, Lomachenko, Shields

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

Usyk (16-0, 12 KOs) went 3-0 in 2018 in becoming the first unified cruiserweight champion in the four-belt era. What's more, Usyk did it by winning each of his fights on the road. In January 2017, Usyk beat Mairis Briedis, in Riga, Latvia, Briedis' hometown, by majority decision. In July, he beat Murat Gassiev in Moscow to unify all four title belts, by unanimous decision, and in November he smoked Tony Bellew in eight.

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[chrisJS]

Usyk with a clean sweep with all the FOTY awards. Who’d have thought the BWAA, ESPN, The Ring would offer a more objective verdict than a bunch of biased message board fanboys. Great achievement considering no fight was in the US, none on HBO/Show/ESPN/Fox and he’s not a benefactor of politics or promotional bias.

[TheCell8]

Isnt Usyk trained by Russ Abner?

[Jab jab boom]

Kind of ironic that lara vs Hurd beat out Canelo vs ggg for fight of the year, considering how Canelo and his fans continuously referred to lara as boring. Separate note, well deserved for usyk, looking forward to seeing what he can do at hw.

[kafkod]

Isnt Usyk trained by Russ Abner?

Every time Usyk appears with his "head trainer" or talks about his trainer himself, it's a different guy than the last time!

It's very strange, as if he is deliberately trying to keep the real ID of his head coach secret.

Russ Anber is the cutman with Team Lomachenko. Usyk described Russ as a "supervisor" who oversees his training and corrects his mistakes.

I think Papachenko is the brains behind Usyk's training regime and Anber, as Usyk said, supervises his preparation on behalf of Papachenko.

[DoktorSleepless]

Kind of ironic that lara vs Hurd beat out Canelo vs ggg for fight of the year, considering how Canelo and his fans continuously referred to lara as boring. Separate note, well deserved for usyk, looking forward to seeing what he can do at hw.

Also funny Lara is getting that BWAA award at same time Lampley is getting his despite Lampley famously putting Lara at the top of his anti-Gatti list.

[djbiancafrost]

I loved that Donaire won one of the Good Guy Award. He really is a gentleman.

[StargazerV]

Every time Usyk appears with his "head trainer" or talks about his trainer himself, it's a different guy than the last time!

It's very strange, as if he is deliberately trying to keep the real ID of his head coach secret.

Russ Anber is the cutman with Team Lomachenko. Usyk described Russ as a "supervisor" who oversees his training and corrects his mistakes.

I think Papachenko is the brains behind Usyk's training regime and Anber, as Usyk said, supervises his preparation on behalf of Papachenko.

After the fight vs Gassiev Usyk admitted that Papachenko was training him for that fight. For the Bellew fight, Usyk said that Papachenko was working with him remotely, so technically not a head trainer, but in fact he was.

Loma and Usyk are close friends, so when Loma is not training (as he was after the injury), his father is able to help Usyk. And Usyk is always happy to get trained by Papachenko, since it was Papachenko who grew Loma, Usyk, Gvozdyk and others from the 2012 Ukrainian Olympic team - he still is the key to their success.

[kafkod]

After the fight vs Gassiev Usyk admitted that Papachenko was training him for that fight. For the Bellew fight, Usyk said that Papachenko was working with him remotely, so technically not a head trainer, but in fact he was.

Loma and Usyk are close friends, so when Loma is not training (as he was after the injury), his father is able to help Usyk. And Usyk is always happy to get trained by Papachenko, since it was Papachenko who grew Loma, Usyk, Gvozdyk and others from the 2012 Ukrainian Olympic team - he still is the key to their success.

I think that's it, but it's strange how they seem to be trying to keep the arrangement secret.

In the lead up to the Gassiev fight, Usyk was filmed being trained by Anber, and called him a superviser who oversees his work - no mention of Papachenko. He also said he'd gotten rid of the guy who trained him for Breidis, because he didn't do a good enough job.

At the weigh in, some guy I'd never heard of before was introduced as his head trainer, and walked out with him to the stage.

Come fight night, that "head trainer" had disappeared and been replaced by Anber, but Papachenko was there and he seemed to be controlling the corner work and giving instructions from outside the ring.

Sky put out a documentary on Usyk to publicise the Bellew fight. The only trainer mentioned in it was his first amateur coach. And if I didn't know better, I would have believed Usyk was still being trained by him to this day.

[angad10]

wow, i didnt know usyk won all his fights on the road. what a champ!! truly unprecedented in todays era but that just shows how goddamn good he is. do you guys think hes big enough to move to HW? these Ukrainians are here to clean out their divisions it seems. That list of top fighters in 2018 - Usyk, Mikey G, Loma and my personal favorite Bud is so deadly. how good is hooker? i need to watch his fights!