Prospect of The Year-Joshua Greer Jr.- The Chicago based George Hernandez trained Bantamweight put together a massively impressive 2017, going 4-0 with 3KO’s against increasingly improved competition. Greer Jr, known as “Don’t Blink” is becoming equally known for his blinding speed and knockout power as he is for bringing his now infamous pillow to the ring. The just 23-year-old Greer turned pro just 2 years ago and suffered a setback back in 2015 in a very controversial decision to fellow prospect Stephen Fulton a fight which almost everyone thinks Greer Jr deserved the nod. Since then the Chicago Bantamweight has gone 12-0 (5) but what has marked his rampant improvement is Greer’s new found power, he has learned to sit down on his punches and generate more power which was on full display on national TV when his awesome one punch KO of James Gordon Smith landed him on the ESPN top 10.
Best Fighter You’ve Never Heard of (2017)- Jono Carroll- The undefeated Dublin native went 2-0 (1) in 2017 with his best performance to date a clear decision victory over the then-undefeated British 130-pound prospect John Quigley. A fight that was supposed to showcase Quigley, ended with him being knocked down and being clearly outpointed by Carroll. Jono followed that performance up with a 3 round destruction of ring veteran Humberto de Santiago in front of a massive audience on the Carl Frampton and Horacio Garcia card in Belfast. In his last two performances, Carrol stopped a tough ring veteran in three rounds and knocked Quigley down multiple times, showing that he does possess some punching power that the casuals may not suspect because of his record 15-0 (2).
Robbery of The Year– Kenichi Ogawa SD Tevin Farmer- There are many fights between pure defensive boxers and punchers that can be very difficult to score, that can lead to great debate. This certainly isn’t one of them, 3DBOXING scored the fight 8-4 in favor of Philly based Farmer, while many, many pundits had in 9-3, and 10-2 in favor of Farmer. Ogawa seemed outclassed and Farmer seemed on cruise control, dominating the pace of the fight, as well as the Compubox numbers. There didn’t seem to be very many close rounds as Farmer seemed to dominate. After the fight, Lampley and Lederman were discussing the bad night Max Deluca had in scoring the fight in favor of Ogawa, Max Kellerman chimed in saying “You know who had a good night, Tevin Farmer had a good night” in which he did seemingly dominate and outclass a formidable opponent in Ogawa.
Trainer of The Year– George Hernandez- The popular vote is going to Derrick James, and he has done a heck of a job. The difference is James takes high performing sports cars and tunes them and turns them into flawless superb racing machines. Whereas George Hernandez finds parts at the scrap yard and turns it into high performing sports cars. The Job he has done in turning Greer Jr, Eddie Ramirez and Nate Gallimore into legitimate prospects is nothing short of amazing.
Performance of The Year– Andre Ward KO Sergey Kovalev- Ward escaped 2016 with a razor-thin decision over Krusker Kovalev. Setting up what was supposed to be the fight of the year, the rematch between the two best Light Heavies in the world. Which started off slow for Ward and Kovalev put some early rounds in the bank. Ward turned it around with a ferocious body attack dominating the middle rounds and finally stopping him with a barrage of body shots that would have made Rocky Balboa proud. Ward become the unanimous Pound for Pound champ and shortly later retired.
Knockout of The Year-Yunier Dorticos KO Dmitry Kudryashov- This was a great year for KO’s this one won’t be popular but the right hand was so picture perfect and landed so preciously that it was the perfect punch and Kudryashov facial reaction and attempt to get to his feet made the perfect punch the perfect knockout. Dorticos was largely unknown to the American fan base after his KO of Kudryashov this is no longer the case.
Upset of The Year– Srisaket Sor Rungvisai MD Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez- Roman Gonzalez had run his record to 46-0, was close to chasing history and Floyd Mayweather and Rocky Marciano’s 49-0. Rungvisai was supposed to be just another number on Gonzalez’s way to history. That all changed in the opening round when Chocolatito was sent to the canvas and from that point on the audience knew this was going to be a fight, and an all-action slugfest it was. Every round was action-packed and competitive. When the cards were read by the narrowest of margins Rungvisai had pulled the massive upset via majority decision
Fight of The Year – Srisaket Sor Rungvisai MD Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez- See Above
Fighter of The Year – Srisaket Sor Rungvisai – Rungvisai is running the table of the major awards. In January of 2017 almost no one knew his name literally we didn’t know if he was Srisaket Sor Rungvisai or Wisaksil Wangek, by the end of 2017 he had 2 victories over Chocolatito a fighter many considered the most complete offensive fighter in the world and some even considered pound for pound #1. He was headlining the most exciting HBO card of the year which was dubbed “SuperFly” and was signed and scheduled to headline another major HBO Card dubbed “SuperFly 2” in which he will battle Juan Francisco Estrada. Hardly does an unknown 115 pounder go from complete obscurity to being on basically everyone’s Pound For Pound list. However, this is exactly what Rungvisai did!
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