Predicting results on the weekly schedule is hard enough.

But predicting results of fights not yet made raises the bar a little.

Nevertheless, it’s a challenge I provide myself when I endeavor to pick the year’s top upset, knockout and fight – in addition to fighter of the year.

OK, that’s not so special. Everyone does that.

But not everyone does it in January, while looking 12 months ahead in the crystal ball.

Anyway, now that we’ve passed 2021’s midway point and are in a brief lull in terms of actual fights and issues to discuss, I thought it as good a time as any to look back at January and see how we’re doing.

In a word… meh.

But not necessarily because I’m wrong.

Instead, my pre-year picks for the first three categories could best be graded “incomplete,” given that the fights that would make them correct haven’t actually occurred.

For example, I tabbed Billy Joe Saunders as author of the year’s top upset, presuming he’d fight Gennady Golovkin and beat him over 12 rounds. Instead, the previously unbeaten Brit tried his luck with Triple-G’s old pal Canelo Alvarez and got his face broken, literally, for his troubles.

As for KO of the Year, I was all-in on Tyson Fury delivering an uppercut for the ages to vanquish Anthony Joshua in their battle for global heavyweight supremacy.

Didn’t happen. Or, well… at least hasn’t happened yet.

Instead, Fury was injuncted by two-time foe Deontay Wilder and will make that series a trilogy later this month before entertaining ideas of mixing with his fellow UK native.

No matter. Go ahead and pencil Wilder’s name in for Joshua and Fury still gets the prize for 2021.

We’ll have to negotiate a similar settlement on the Fight of the Year pick, too.

Though both principals – Gervonta Davis and Ryan Garcia – have been active and successful this year, stopping Mario Barrios and Luke Campbell in memorable fashion, respectively – it’s unlikely they’ll get together in a ring by the time 2021 draws to a close.

So we’ll have to put that one on ice for a while. 

But don’t forget where you heard it first.

Meanwhile, it’s not a total loss when it comes to Fighter of the Year.

The pick of Errol Spence Jr. isn’t a lock for anything the 31-year-old Texan has done so far, but don’t worry. By the time summer gives way to fall, it will be.

The IBF/WBC welterweight king vacated his elite pound-for-pound perch after a serious car accident in 2019, but leaned on his already-established street cred to stay in the Manny Pacquiao sweepstakes – a position he solidified with a one-sided defeat of Danny Garcia to close out 2020.

And once he dispenses with the Filipino legend on Aug. 21 in Las Vegas – let’s call it a one-sided Round 10 finish – and regains majority status atop any lists worth paying attention to, the front-runner status in the FOTY race becomes a slam dunk proposition to close out 2021.

And who knows… we might just get the Terence Crawford fight someday after all.

OK, if three of the year’s top four awards are still up for grabs, where are the frontrunners?

Though I’d contend Saunders beating Golovkin would be a bigger surprise based on significance if both were to occur in the same year, the actual leader in the clubhouse for 2021 thus far has to be another Englishman – Josh Warrington – coming up on the short end of a ninth-round TKO.

Warrington’s opponent, Mauricio Lara, had neither fought outside Mexico nor beaten a recognizable opponent when he was brought to London for the former 126-pound champ’s first fight in 15 months.

But instead of providing a competitive spar session before bowing out, Lara dropped Warrington in the fourth and did so again in the ninth before getting the finish just 54 seconds into the round.

A rematch later this year could soften the blow, but the shock of the first one will still last a while.

The KO of the Year is a similar story.

If both a Fury stoppage of Joshua and an Oscar Valdez erasure of Miguel Berchelt occur in the same year and are highlight worthy, it’s a no-brainer that the heavyweights would get the nod based on stature.

But it’ll take that sort of competition to separate Valdez from the award in 2021.

Long a worthwhile and championship-level player at 126 pounds, most thought Valdez was punching above his weight – literally and figuratively – when he signed to tangle with longtime junior lightweight king Miguel Berchelt in the Las Vegas bubble in February.

Instead, the smaller man controlled the action for most of nine rounds, scoring a pair of knockdowns before ending the battle with a perfect counter left hook as Berchelt lurched forward following a pair of missed shots late in the 10th – prompting a Russell Mora wave-off without a count.

Valdez and Berchelt could easily claim lead status in the Fight of the Year race through six months as well, but the narrow lead at this point – at least in this space – goes to a pair of much smaller men.

Junior flyweight rivals Juan Francisco Estrada and Roman Gonzalez got together for a second time after eight-plus years and two weight classes, this time to unify the WBA and WBC titles at 115 pounds.

More than 2,500 punches were thrown across 12 rounds of sublime fighting in close quarters before Estrada, who’d lost a unanimous nod in 2012, was awarded a split decision with scores of 117-111 and 115-113 in his favor while a third judge saw if 115-113 for Gonzalez.

A third fight is penciled in for October and it’d be no surprise if it was in the year-end running, too.

* * * * * * * * * *

This week’s title-fight schedule: 

No title fights scheduled.

Last week's picks: None 

2021 picks record: 26-7 (78.7 percent) 

Overall picks record: 1,182-382 (75.5 percent) 

NOTE: Fights previewed are only those involving a sanctioning body's full-fledged title-holder – no interim, diamond, silver, etc. Fights for WBA "world championships" are only included if no "super champion" exists in the weight class. 

Lyle Fitzsimmons has covered professional boxing since 1995 and written a weekly column for Boxing Scene since 2008. He is a full voting member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Reach him at fitzbitz@msn.com or follow him on Twitter – @fitzbitz.