2023 awards: female fighter & fight, round, trainer, manager of year
Plus: Most shocking upset, best performance and biggest story
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Women’s boxing continued its ascent in 2023 with several quality fighters continuing to add to their list of achievements and mix it up in top-notch bouts.
But Amanda Serrano, already the only woman to win world titles in seven divisions, stood out in another big year — inside and outside of the ring — and she is the 2023 Fight Freaks Unite female fighter of the year.
Serrano checked all the boxes. The Brooklyn, New York-based Puerto Rican star was active, winning all three of her bouts, including a sensational fight of the year contender against Erika Cruz.
Serrano (46-2-1, 30 KOs), 35, also added a significant line item to her Hall of Fame resume by outpointing Cruz (98-92, 98-92 and 97-93) in a blood-soaked, toe-to-toe battle on Feb. 4 in New York to take her WBC belt and unify all four major titles to become the undisputed featherweight champion.
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Make sure to check out the other 2023 award stories
Two more wins followed, an expected rout of former titlist Heather Hardy in an August rematch and a surprising shutout of mandatory challenger Danila Ramos in October.
Besides her in-ring accomplishments, Serrano continued her advocacy for female boxers to be treated the same as their male counterparts, namely to fight under the same set of rules.
Rather than fight Ramos for 10 rounds using two-minute rounds, she and her team, including manager/trainer Jordan Maldonado and promoters Jake Paul and Nakisa Bidarian of Most Valuable Promotions, received the OK from the Florida Athletic Commission for the fight to be scheduled for 12 three-minute rounds, which Ramos happily went along with.
However, the WBC, citing its medical advisers, declined to sanction her fight with Ramos because of the rules change.
In December, Serrano, in the name of gender equity, sacrificed her undisputed status by vacating the WBC title and vowed that all of her future title fights would have to be under the same rules as men.
“Moving forward if a sanctioning body doesn’t want to give me and my fellow fighters the choice to fight the same as the men then I will not be fighting for that sanctioning body,” Serrano said when she vacated.
The bout with Ramos was the first unified women’s championship fight contested under the same rules as men and is believed to be the first women’s fight to employ 12 three-minute rounds since Layla McCarter — who once defeated Serrano’s sister, Cindy — won two lightweight title bouts in Las Vegas in 2007.
Runners-up: Yokasta Valle (three unified strawweight title defenses in dominant fashion); Katie Taylor (avenged May loss to Chantelle Cameron to become the undisputed junior welterweight champion in November and the second female to become an undisputed champion in two divisions); Seniesa Estrada (unified strawweight titles and then defended them once, both wins in dominating fashion).
Female fight of the year: Cameron-Taylor II
Revenge and history were sweet for Irish national hero Katie Taylor, who cemented her status as an all-time great with a career-best performance on Nov. 25 in a terrific battle with Chantelle Cameron.
It took place six months after Taylor had her long-awaited first pro fight in Ireland and suffered her first loss as she challenged undisputed women’s junior welterweight champion Cameron (18-1, 8 KOs), 32, of England, in a fantastic fight. In the rematch, Taylor avenged that majority decision defeat by winning a majority decision at 3Arena in Dublin, the same venue as their thrilling first fight on May 20, in a battle even better than their first clash.
They battled at close quarters at a fast pace in an extremely grueling fight from the start. Taylor (23-1, 6 KOs), 37, raised swelling on Cameron’s forehead in the first round and later in the round Taylor appeared to suffer a knockdown from a jab, but referee Roberto Ramirez Jr. ruled it was a slip. The fight turned into an all-out brawl in the second round and really never let up.
An accidental head butt in the third round tore open a deep and bloody cut on Cameron’s forehead and she fought with blood on her face for the rest of the fight, which featured non-stop action, including the tremendous seventh round in which they spent virtually the entire two minutes banging away at each other in the center of the ring.
Taylor, the reigning undisputed lightweight champion, won 98-92 and 96-94, with one judge scoring the fight 95-95, to claim all four 140-pound belts and become the second woman to become an undisputed champion in two divisions as she joined reigning undisputed middleweight champion Claressa Shields, who also did it at junior middleweight.
It’s the second year in a row Taylor participated in the female fight of the year, having defended the undisputed lightweight crown via split decision against Amanda Serrano in their unforgettable slugfest in April 2022 at New York’s sold-out Madison Square Garden.
Runners-up: Cameron W10 (majority) Taylor 1; Serrano W10 Erika Cruz.
Round of the year: Foster-Hernandez (11th)
O’Shaquie Foster was on the road defending the WBC junior lightweight title against mandatory challenger Eduardo “Rocky” Hernandez on his turf in Cancun, Mexico, on Oct. 28 on a DAZN card being put on by Hernandez promoter Matchroom Boxing.
Because open scoring was in use, he knew after the eighth round that he was down on the cards and needed to do something dramatic to keep his belt. While Foster eventually got a come-from-behind knockout win with 28 seconds left in the 12th round to complete the thrilling comeback from trailing 110-99 and 107-102 on two scorecards while being ahead 106-103 on the third, it was the mind-blowing 11th round that set the stage for the rally.
Foster badly hurt Hernandez with a right hand about 45 seconds into the 11th round and then was all over him, rocking him with an onslaught of shots. At one point, Hernandez nearly turned his back on Foster and it appeared like the fight would be stopped. Foster continued to unload mercilessly on Hernandez, who came off the ropes and blasted Foster with a right hand.
Suddenly, Hernandez had Foster in huge trouble as he began to tee off with the crowd chanting “Rocky! Rocky!” Then Foster came back as they fiercely traded toe to toe and both looked like they were about to be stopped at any moment.
“My coaches were telling me that I was behind around the eighth round so I knew I had to push it before I lose my belt,” Foster said during his post-fight interview. “I have to give it all, so that’s what I did.”
Runners-up: Jaime Munguia-Sergiy Derevyanchenko (5th); Robeisy Ramirez-Rafael Espinoza (12th); Chantelle Cameron-Katie Taylor II (7th), Shavkatdzhon Rakhimov-Joe Cordina (2nd).
Trainer of the year: Brian McIntyre
Brian McIntyre has expertly trained Terence Crawford for his entire career, leading him to world titles in three divisions and telling anyone who would listen that when he finally got a chance to fight Errol Spence Jr. that it would be an easy fight. Indeed, when at long last they met to unify titles and determine the undisputed welterweight champion in July, McIntyre had his man ready for his biggest moment as Crawford destroyed Spence with three knockdowns in a one-sided ninth-round knockout victory and ascended to No. 1 pound-for-pound.
But if there had been any knock on McIntyre it was that although he also trained other fighters, he had never overseen any of them other than Crawford in a big-time victory. But he checked that box in 2023, taking over training duties for middleweight contender Chris Eubank Jr. and leading him to a 10th-round knockout of Liam Smith in their September rematch, reversing his fourth-round knockout loss to Smith in their first fight in January. Further, McIntyre also is the head trainer for elite lightweight prospect Keyshawn Davis, who maintained his undefeated record.
Runners-up: Bill Haney (trains son Devin Haney); Shingo Inoue (trains sons Naoya and Takuma Inoue).
Manager of the year: Keith Connolly
Winning the fighter or trainer of the year award is about winning in the ring at the highest level. While it does reflect well on a manager if the fighter wins, the main task of the manager is to make sure the fighter gets the best possible deal for the bouts they agree on with the promoter.
Keith Connolly, the Boxing Writers Association of America manager of the year in 2019, did that expertly in a banner 2023.
He negotiated an amicable separation between Top Rank and super middleweight contender Edgar Berlanga, who he then had multiple offers for and signed to a lucrative deal with Matchroom Boxing for vastly more money than he was making under the Top Rank deal.
He extricated IBF heavyweight mandatory challenger Filip Hrgovic from a promoter-friendly deal with Wasserman Boxing and Matchroom Boxing and signed him directly with the group putting on the major events in Saudi Arabia while also getting the IBF to guarantee him the next title shot in writing. The deal Connolly got for Hrgovic in Saudi Arabia is a multi-fight, eight-figure deal that kicked off with a seven-figure purse for him to knock out Mark De Mori in the first round on the “Day of Reckoning” undercard, an expected easy win that set him up for a huge payday for the IBF title in his next fight.
Connolly also signed junior welterweight contender Richardson Hitchins, who was inactive and toiling in non-televised fights, and landed him a deal with Matchroom Boxing that gave him exposure (including a main event); raised his pay substantially; and positioned him for an IBF final eliminator.
Runners-up: Bill Haney (handled son Devin Haney’s career as undisputed lightweight champion to winning a junior welterweight title while maintaining promotional and broadcast free agency); Egis Klimas (clients include unified heavyweight titlist Oleksandr Usyk).
Performance of the year: Terence Crawford
For five years, we waited for the showdown between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr. to determine the undisputed welterweight champion and, when it finally happened, pound-for-pound supremacy.
At last, they squared off on July 29 in the main event of a Premier Boxing Champions card on Showtime PPV at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas in the most significant fight of the year. It was a 147-pound summit meeting that took its rightful place in welterweight history along with similar welterweight championship bouts, including Sugar Ray Leonard-Thomas Hearns I (1981), Oscar De La Hoya-Felix Trinidad (1999) and Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao (2015).
In the end, Crawford proved his mettle as the pound-for-pound king by authoring one of the most one-sided beatdowns in a high-stakes fight in recent memory.
Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs), who moved to 19-0 in 19 consecutive world title fights covering three divisions, dropped the usually durable Spence three times — in the second round and twice more in the seventh — en route to a punishing and extremely one-sided ninth-round knockout victory to become:
The first male undisputed welterweight champion since Cory Spinks in 2003 in the three-belt era.
The first-ever men’s four-belt undisputed welterweight champion.
The first two-division men’s four-belt champion; he also did at junior welterweight in 2017.
Crawford’s devastating performance was as good as it gets in a true mega fight.
Runners-up: Teofimo Lopez’s dominant decision over Josh Taylor to win the lineal/WBO junior welterweight title; Devin Haney’s move up to junior welterweight for a shutout decision over Regis Prograis to win the WBC title; Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez’s surprisingly one-sided ninth-round knockout of then-beaten Sunny Edwards to unify flyweight titles in a fight for division supremacy; MMA star Francis Ngannou crossing over to boxing for his pro debut and dropping and coming within a whisker of a gargantuan upset of heavyweight champion Tyson Fury in a debatable split decision loss.
Upset of the year: Espinoza W12 Ramirez
Unheralded Rafael Espinoza was an anonymous 10-year pro when he was hand-picked to challenge WBO featherweight titlist Robeisy Ramirez — viewed by many as the No. 1 fighter in the division — in what amounted to a homecoming defense for the Cuban defector in Pembroke Pines, Florida, which is on the outskirts of Cuban-heavy Miami.
But that’s why they fight the fights. Espinoza, facing his first top opponent, suffered a near fight-ending knockdown in the fifth round but battled back to seal the shocking upset victory in a terrific fight by scoring a knockdown late in the 12th round. The knockdown was the difference in his majority decision victory — 115-111, 114-112 and 113-113 — to claim the 126-pound title on Dec. 9 in the main event of a Top Rank Boxing on ESPN card.
Runners-up: Brian Mendoza KO7 Sebastian Fundora; Joseph Parker W12 Deontay Wilder; Adrian Curiel KO2 Sivenathi Nontshinga; Jose Felix Jr. TKO3 Gary Cully.
Story of the year: It’s no longer Showtime
For 37 years, Showtime was a titan of televised boxing at the highest level. The premium cable network, which spent decades going toe-to-toe with rival HBO, broadcast many of the biggest, best and most memorable fights in boxing history, be it on the network’s cornerstone series “Showtime Championship Boxing” or via pay-per-view.
When HBO ended its coverage of the sport at the conclusion of 2018, many thought it was just a matter of time until Showtime joined it on the sideline. Five years later, the moment arrived as parent company Paramount Global announced in mid-October that it would shutter Showtime Sports at the end of the year.
It was somewhat ironic that the decision was made during one of Showtime’s biggest years. While the non-pay-per-view cards often lacked, Showtime was instrumental in bringing fans several major fights on Showtime PPV, including the blockbuster Gervonta Davis-Ryan Garcia bout and the long-awaited Errol Spence Jr.-Terence Crawford undisputed welterweight title fight.
The network that featured virtually every significant fighter in the sport since the mid-1980s at least once, including numerous huge fights involving Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Floyd Mayweather, Julio Cesar Chavez and Canelo Alvarez, signed off with a final tripleheader broadcast from The Armory in Minneapolis on Dec. 16, sending longtime partner Premier Boxing Champions off to begin its deal with Amazon Prime Video in March.
Runner-up: Saudi Arabia made a huge move into boxing to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars by bankrolling the Tyson Fury-Francis Ngannou and “Day of Reckoning” mega events, with the Fury-Oleksandr Usyk undisputed heavyweight title fight signed for Feb. 17. There are also plans for more major fights as well in 2024, including Anthony Joshua’s next appearance and a proposed Artur Beterbiev-Dmitry Bivol undisputed light heavyweight title fight.
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Photos: Serrano, Foster-Hernandez: Ed Mulholland/Matchroom Boxing; Cameron-Taylor II: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing; McIntyre: Lawrence Lustig/Boxxer; Connolly: Keith Connolly; Crawford: Esther Lin/Showtime; Ramirez-Espinoza: Mikey Williams/Top Rank; Showtime scene: Amanda Westcott/Showtime
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Thanks for a great article Dan
I agree Hernandez foster was rd of year it was a nobrainer what a round dan