Senior writers Chris Mannix and Greg Bishop are breaking down the cases for Devin Haney, Terence Crawford and Naoya Inoue for 2023 Fighter of the Year.
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00:00 This week, with the calendar winding down, the debate over fighter of the year is heating up.
00:04 Was Terrence Crawford's one big win big enough?
00:06 Does Devin Haney's run through multiple weight divisions make Haney the favorite?
00:10 And what about Noyoye Inoue?
00:12 For the second time in as many years, the monster is an undisputed champion.
00:16 Will Inoue emerge as boxing's best?
00:18 Greg Bishop and I break it all down this week on The Knockdown.
00:24 Chris Maddox alongside Greg Bishop and Greg, it is about that time to start talking about the
00:31 fighter of the year. And this is the most competitive field that I can remember in years,
00:38 where you have at least three, as many as five legitimate candidates for fighter of the year.
00:44 So make your case for, let's say, Terrence Crawford for fighter of the year.
00:49 No, I like the question. I think it's totally fair, the premise.
00:52 What I would argue in favor of Terrence Crawford is I've never seen a performance like that in
00:58 person, personally. And I'd put it above Pacquiao Cotto, Pacquiao Hatton, some of the other fights
01:05 with Floyd Mayweather, like say, Marcus Maidana, the first one. I just thought there was a level
01:10 of dominance and artistry and like everything that made Terrence Crawford special for a long
01:16 time that was done against Errol Spence on the night that they fought this summer.
01:20 And I think that Terrence could have helped this case by having more than one fight. But I also
01:25 think that there is a case to be made for transcendence. This is a guy who was, in my
01:30 opinion, somewhat unfairly maligned for his resume, a guy who's always been unique, distinct,
01:35 different, and a guy who that night, I mean, he just crushed Errol Spence in a way that left no
01:43 doubt as to his brilliance. And so if I were making the argument for him, and I actually would,
01:48 that's where I'd start. There's no question that Terrence Crawford had the best win of 2023,
01:55 and it's the best by a pretty significant margin. If Terrence Crawford had even defended his titles
02:02 against a low level mandatory opponent, let's just say Giovanni Santillan, for example, who beat
02:08 Alexis Rocha earlier in the year. If he had finished the year with a win over someone like
02:13 Santillan or on that level, I think he would have sewn up the award. But even though it's not
02:19 unprecedented for the fighter of the year to have just one fight in a year, it doesn't happen all
02:26 that often. And there's a reason for that. I think you have to have more than one fight to really
02:31 earn that fighter of the year award, no matter how quality that win ultimately was. So I give him
02:39 consideration, but I'm going to make my case for Devin Hainey because Devin Hainey to me has had
02:45 two of the best wins of 2023. He starts off the year in the spring as the undisputed champion
02:51 at 135 and takes on Vasily Lomachenko in his first non-George Kambosis title defense. Now,
02:58 people can say that, "Oh, it was Lomachenko won. I scored it for Lomachenko." You know what?
03:05 That's what happens when you have two high level guys in the ring. A lot of times you get close
03:11 fights that come out of it. So even if you scored the fight for Vasily Lomachenko, like a lot of
03:15 people did, you can't say that it was any kind of robbery because one judge had it 115-113 one way
03:23 and another judge had it 115-113 the other way. Just that's not a robbery. So I give Hainey
03:28 credit for that win. And then in his next fight, his very first fight in his first weight class,
03:34 he takes on a guy that I thought was the number one guy in that weight class. Regis Progray,
03:39 longstanding 140-pounder, title holder, has put on an impressive run of his own since that loss
03:44 to Josh Taylor. And not only does Hainey win that fight, but he dominates. He wins all 12 rounds on
03:50 the judges' scorecards, picks up a knockdown in the early rounds of that fight. That was a flawless
03:56 performance by Devin Hainey in his first fight at a new weight class against arguably the top guy
04:02 at that weight class. So Lomachenko, Progray, those two wins I think make a really strong
04:08 case for Devin Hainey. Yeah, and by the logic, I think we talked about this on one of the recent
04:12 ones, like to me there's no shame in a close fight with Vasily Lomachenko. Like he should
04:17 not be docked for that at all. I think the fact that he took that fight and weathered it and then
04:23 came back with a pretty transcendent performance that you described, I mean, he didn't just
04:27 dominate that fight, he won every minute of it. You know, like not even, even more granular than
04:32 every round. And I think the difference for me is I'd put Terence's performance up with the best
04:39 we've seen this decade. Now it's still a little early into it. So I think that maybe there's a
04:44 bit of a tipping point or emphasis there in regard to like, I'd put it a little higher than just the
04:48 best fight of this year. It's the best fight I've seen in quite a while in person. But then you get
04:53 into like, why didn't he do another one? I think it was totally fair. So I'm by your logic. I think
04:58 they're both deserving. So what about the third guy in this mix? And that's Noe Inouye, who you'd
05:04 have to wake up pretty early in the morning to watch his two fights live this year. His first
05:08 fight back in the spring, he absolutely dominates Stephen Fulton in his first fight at 122 pounds.
05:16 That was the second most impressive win of 2023. The first being Bud Crawford, the second most
05:22 impressive was Inouye over Fulton. He follows that up, December 26th, knocks out Marlon Topalas
05:28 to become the undisputed champion at 122 pounds for the second time in as many years. Inouye is
05:35 undisputed at 122 and he ran through the best in that weight class in two fights. I can't overstate
05:40 this. That win over Fulton was incredibly impressive. Fulton was unquestionably in my
05:45 mind, the number one guy at 122 and he had no shot in that fight. He was beaten pillar to post,
05:51 knocked down, eventually knocked out. And then even though the Topalas fight didn't go
05:55 probably quite as well as Inouye would have liked, got touched up a little bit in that fight,
05:59 especially in the middle rounds. Inouye eventually knocks out Topalas. Whoever gets in the ring with
06:04 this guy, regardless of weight class, you know, more likely than not, they're getting knocked out
06:09 and every time they're, they're getting hurt. So I think you can make a pretty strong case
06:14 that Inouye is the fighter of the year too. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, last week after we did
06:19 this, you told me to go back and watch the Fulton fight and I did go back and watch it and it was
06:24 incredible. In some ways I think it's almost unfair to Inouye that like he fights mostly in
06:29 Japan and his brilliance is not truly recognized the way I think it should be in the United States.
06:35 That performance alone was enough to look at him and say, this guy could be the top pound guy.
06:40 Who might he want to fight? We talked about that last week. I just think there's a lot to love
06:45 about him. And I guess this brings it back for me to what you started with. Like if any of those
06:51 guys win any of the fighter of the year awards, you know, that are distributed by various outlets
06:56 and media members and boxing entities. I think it's really hard to argue that somebody got robbed
07:01 now because it's boxing. I'm sure there will be arguments and debate about it, but I think all
07:06 three guys could win. And you know, I mean, the more we talk, the more I wish we could just split
07:11 it up between them. Yeah. You, you also can't, you know, diminish the performances of David Benavidez
07:17 who had two quality wins, Caleb plant and Demetrius Andre, Gervonta Davis starts the year
07:22 knocking out Hector Garcia knocks out Ryan Garcia. He had a terrific first half of 2023.
07:28 So a lot of deserving candidates, but I think it's going to come down to though, is do you believe
07:33 that Bud Crawford's one win over Errol Spence was enough to award him the fighter of the year? If
07:40 you do it's Bud Crawford, hands down. If you don't, I think you're choosing between Haney in a way,
07:45 which is about as tough a choice as you're going to get Greg. Good stuff, man. Do it again next week.