Three-time super-middleweight champion Carl Froch has named his 2023 Fighter of the Year after a standout twelve months for boxing that has left most fans picking between three fighters for the award.
Naoya Inoue became just the second man to claim an undisputed title in two different weight-divisions since the dawn of the four-belt era after he knocked out Marlon Tapales in the tenth-round of their Boxing Day showdown.
This came just five months after his super-bantamweight debut, where he stopped the poster boy of the division Stephen Fulton in one of the performances of the year.
Meanwhile, Devin Haney defeated pound-for-pound great Vasily Lomachenko by decision back in April in the second defence of his own undisputed title. Then, ‘The Dream’ vacated his belts to step up to super-lightweight, where he whitewashed Regis Prograis to claim the WBC 140lbs title.
However, in an interview with TalkSport, Froch picked Terence Crawford for the award, after ‘Bud’ became the first four-belt welterweight champion in a beatdown of long-term rival Errol Spence Jr in his lone contest of 2023.
“Fighter of the year, for me, I think Terence Crawford because of the dominance in that fight [vs Spence], that we expected to be close. Terence Crawford is just class, he is just levels [above everyone].”
“Terence Crawford went in there and just dominated him, he outboxed him on the back foot with the counter-punch, then he was on the front foot counter-punching, he tore him [Spence] apart and obliterated him.
“I don’t think anybody, not even in the Terence Crawford camp, saw that coming, because that was a really solid, dominant performance at an elite, world level. For me, he is fighter of the year.”
“He [Devin Haney] is a close second.”
Many fans claim that Crawford’s inactivity could cost him in his bid to win the award, but the unbeaten 36-year-old has responded to that argument on social media.