Not Fight of the Year, or Fighter of the Year, Simply the PERFORMANCE of the Year

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

BY MICHAEL KATZ - Sometimes, humble pie is delicious, especially when it is a pleasant – if modest - surprise when you’re wrong, as I was when I had Dewey big in 1948 and wound up with Harry Truman for four more years. I was wrong about Calzaghe-Kessler, too. They proved the hype correct. I’m not sure how “super” these supermiddleweights are, but I’m certainly willing to concede that they would have been handfuls for the likes of Roy Jones Jr. and James Toney.

I don’t think I’m wrong about the next big fight of this fantastic finish to a pretty solid year, the one Saturday between Sugar Shane Mosley and Miguel Cotto at Madison Square Garden. I could be very wrong about my pick, underdog Mosley, but no matter who wins I can almost guarantee it will be a candidate for fight of the year.

Calzaghe-Kessler was not. Joe Calzaghe’s domination of the second half didn’t make him fighter of the year, either. But you can have my vote for performance of the year when the Welshman made some adjustments against a pretty fair country fighter in Mikkel Kessler in what was more of a revelation than his 2006 victory over Jeff Lacy.

It was so smooth, the way he used his right-handed jab to disrupt the Pretty Good Dane’s attack that I am toying with the idea of moving Calzaghe up from fourth place to third, behind only Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, on my pound-for-pound list, replacing Juan Manual Marquez – who did absolutely nothing wrong and an awful lot right in winning just about every minute of his fight last Saturday against Rocky Juarez.

That’s how impressed I was with Calzaghe and I hope he gets his wish and faces Bernard Hopkins next spring. Frank Warren, Calzaghe’s promoter and long-time albatross, said Hopkins “can pick the weight, he can pick the date, he can pick the site. We don’t care. We want this fight. We’ll fight him in his back yard, if that’s where he wants it. Joe Calzaghe wants this fight and he deserves it.” [details]

[bigsmoothh]

fight of the year marquez vs. vazquez2
fighter of the year kelly pavlik
performance joe calzaghe

[DIOS DOMINICANO]

fight of the year marquez vs. vazquez2
fighter of the year kelly pavlik
performance joe calzaghe

I give the PERFORMANCE of the year to Kelly Pavlik.

Think about it. Kelly got off the mat against a true champion and came back to knock that guy out.

That's good stuff.

[grayfist]

If the punchstats bandied around are true--that he landed (?!) over a thousand punches-- Calzaghe should also be punching machine of the year, or perhaps, of the decade.

[Mr. David]

If the punchstats bandied around are true--that he landed (?!) over a thousand punches-- Calzaghe should also be punching machine of the year, or perhaps, of the decade.

Threw more than 1,000 punches, not landed. And ditto goes for that urban legend about the Lacy fight.

[grayfist]

Threw more than 1,000 punches, not landed. And ditto goes for that urban legend about the Lacy fight.

I suspected as much. That's why I parenthetically put a question mark and an exclamation point after the word, "landed".

There were posts that says he "landed in excess of a thousand".
A couple of posts that I read even corrected another poster who said, Cal "threw 1,006 punches", by saying, "landed, not thrown."

Just same, 1,000 thrown is still incredible. Especially so for a SuperMiddle.

This alongside the Lacy fight has me holding my breath as to what (urban legend) stats will come out in his next fight.

Sidebar: You seem familiar, Mr. David. It seems to me that this is a new handle for a member I have had enlightening conversations here on BS last year...?

[SkillspayBills]

Performance goes to Pavlik for me.
Fighter will more than likely be Floyd
and Fight of the year is Marquez/Vazquez and most recently Codrington/Bika!

[SHB]

So Kessler is now relegated to "pretty fair country fighter"?.

And so it begins ....

[Technical_Skill]

I got an idea, how about michael Katz judges performance of the year, at the end of the year?

Two of the biggest fights this year havent even happened yet, like i said before if mayweather beats hatton, he has to be fighter of the year for fighting in 2 career defining fights back to back.

If hatton beats mayweather, he should be fighter of the year for winning 2 career defining fights back to back and becoming the undisputed best in 2 weight classes.

[JakeNDaBox]

One of my former employers pointed out that Calzaghe “is a Welshman, not a Brit.” Go to school, Gregory, and study European geography and history. Wales is part of Great Britain. Calzaghe, like all Welshmen, even if they hate to admit it, is a Brit. He is NOT an Englishman, which is where most people err.

Had to laugh at this part, as I thought the same thing when reading the note on the b-talk news brief.