Usyk voted BWAA fighter of year; 1st bout vs. Fury is fight of the year
Heavyweight champion wins Sugar Ray Robinson award for 2nd time; also the rest of the balloting results
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Oleksandr Usyk, who unified the four heavyweight titles to become the first undisputed champion in the division in 25 years and the first of the four-belt era in 2024, was the big winner in the annual awards announced by the Boxing Writers Association of America on Monday.
BWAA members voted Usyk winner of the Sugar Ray Robinson Fighter of the Year award for the second time and, along with rival Tyson Fury, he was also half of the Muhammad Ali–Joe Frazier Fight of the Year.
Usyk beat Fury twice in 2024, knocking him down and winning a split decision in their first epic fight in May to retain his three belts and take the WBC and lineal titles from Fury, which was also voted fight of the year.
In the December rematch, Usyk beat Fury again, this time by unanimous decision — 116-112 on all three scorecards — to retain the title, although he had previously been forced to vacate the IBF belt.
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Ukraine’s Usyk (23-0, 14 KOs) was also voted BWAA fighter of the year in 2018, when he went 3-0, unifying two cruiserweight titles against Mairis Briedis; easily outpointed Murat Gassiev to become the first four-belt undisputed cruiserweight champion and win the World Boxing Super Series tournament; and then defended all four belts by spectacular eighth-round knockout of Tony Bellew.
The other fighter of the year nominees were undisputed light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev; IBF heavyweight titleholder Daniel Dubois; WBO/WBA cruiserweight titlist Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez; and lineal/WBC junior bantamweight champion Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez.
The other fight of the year nominees were heavyweight Dereck Chisora’s 10-round decision over Joe Joyce; Raymond Ford’s 12th-round knockout of Otabek Kholmatov to win the vacant WBA featherweight title; Vergil Ortiz Jr.’s decision over Serhii Bohachuk to win the WBC interim junior middleweight title; and Kenshiro Teraji’s decision over Carlos Canizales to retain the WBC junior flyweight title.
The other award winners:
Robert Garcia won the Eddie Futch Trainer of the Year award for the second time. His stable of fighters went 70-7 in 2024 and some of them won significant bouts, including Rodriguez, who returned to junior bantamweight to claim the lineal and WBC titles by knocking out Juan Francisco Estrada; Jose “Rayo” Valenzuela, who scored an upset split decision over Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz to win the WBA junior welterweight title; and unbeaten junior middleweight Vergil Ortiz Jr. won three fights, including a majority decision over Serhii Bohachuk to win the WBC interim title in a strong fight of the year contender.
The other nominees were Usyk trainer Yuri Tkachenko; Daniel Dubois trainer Don Charles; Rudy Hernandez, whose charges include WBC bantamweight titlist Junto Nakatani and WBO flyweight titlist Anthony Olascuaga; and Freddy Fundora, who trained son Sebastian to the unified junior middleweight title and daughter Gabriela to the undisputed flyweight title
The Cus D'Amato Manager of the Year award went to Egis Klimas, who won it for the fourth time. He manages Usyk, unified middleweight titlist Janibek Alimkhanuly, IBF junior middleweight titlist Bakhram Murtazaliev, and IBF lightweight titleholder Vasiliy Lomachenko. Klimas also won it in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Other nominees were Keith Connolly, Vadim Kornilov and Brian Peters
Legendary broadcaster Marv Albert, who called boxing for decades on NBC as well as covering multiple Olympic boxing tournaments, won the Sam Taub Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism.
Bruce Silverglade, the owner of the famed Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn, won the Marvin Kohn Good Guy Award.
Top Rank’s Hall of Fame matchmaker Brad “Abdul” Goodman won the Barney Nagler Award for Long and Meritorious Service.
Prichard Colon and his family were voted the John McCain-Bill Crawford Courage Award winner. Colon was a 16-0 welterweight prospect when he suffered a traumatic brain injury in a ninth-round disqualification loss to Terrel Williams in 2015 and nearly died. Colon survived and has made some progress since with his family serving as caretakers.
In previously announced awards voted on by separate committees:
Gabriella Fundora was awarded the Christy Martin Female Fighter of the Year; the rematch between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano was voted Female Fight of the Year (their first fight was the 2022 winner); and Thomas Gerbasi is the Nat Fleischer Award winner for Career Excellence in Boxing Journalism as voted on only by past winners.
Nominations were done in January. The winners will be honored at the 100th annual BWAA awards dinner this spring on a date and at a location to be determined.
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Photo: BWAA
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Great deep dive stat on Robert Garcia's stable of fighters going a combined 70-7 in 2024. Remarkable achievement!