Canelo Still Got Chance for 2nd FOY Award
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 22 Dec 2020
A day after Canelo Alvarez notched another career milestone at super middleweight, the latest issue of the Ring Magazine came out proclaiming Tyson Fury and Teofimo Lopez as its co-Fighters of the Year.
The timing was bad, to say the least.
Many pointed to the pressures of editorial, publication and circulation deadlines as a plausible explanation.
There have been telltale signs reading through the feature writeups on the co-awardees that they were prepared after a much earlier decision had been made about Fury and Lopez sharing the honors.
Without regard or reference to Canelo's equally important fight versus Callum Smith for most of the titles at super middleweight, including the Ring's lineal belt.
Surprising and quizzical, if you asked me.
Indeed, the announcement took many by surprise as there was no prior writeups in the Ring about the matter of its FOY award or for any its annual yearend awards for that matter.
Though it does not take too much gray matter to recognize that indeed Fury and Lopez were the strongest candidates for the FOY plum.
Pending Canelo's fight with Smith, that is.
Canelo Alvarez captures the WBC and WBA super middleweight belts after defeating Callum Smith in San Antonio, Texas on Saturday Dec. 19, 2020.
Some people were tempted to suspect that Oscar de la Hoya, owner of the Ring Magazine with whom Canelo has recently had a bitter falling out at Golden Boy Promotions may have something to do with it.
But the Ring Magazine has always taken pride in its editorial independence and integrity.
So let us blame editorial deadline for the sin of omission.
Let us see if the Ring will do something to amend its declaration.
In 1966, the Ring did not dispense the FOY award thus denying Muhammad Ali of a second annual recognition as best fighter because of his military draft dodging issue.
But the Ring belatedly and retroactively gave Ali the award fifty years later in 2016, posthumously.
In 2012, the Ring chose Juan Manuel Marquez as FOY over Nonito Donaire when most others including the bigger Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) had the Filipino Flash as without doubt the year's best performing fighter.
The Ring pointed to Marquez 6th round knockout of Manny Pacquiao as the main reason albeit the fact that Manny had been stopped twice before and was coming off a title fight loss, albeit controversially to Tim Bradley.
Donaire on the other hand, had his best year, defeating in succession FOUR champion fighters namely Wilfredo Vasquez Jr., Jeffrey Methabula, Toshiaki Nishioka and Jorge Arce, the last two by brutal knockouts in winning most of the world titles at super bantamweight.
Fortunately, Donaire still emerged as the consensus Fighter of the Year for 2012 as Yahoo Sport, Sports Illustrated and others had him as their FOY.
That could still happen in the case of Canelo Alvarez if the Ring would not make it a three way tie for the FOY.
Alvarez could still make it with the BWAA, Yahoo Sports, SI and ESPY.
The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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