BWAA ANNOUNCES 2015 AWARD WINNERS
The Boxing Writers Association of America is pleased to announce that its Sugar Ray Robinson 2015 Fighter of the Year is Floyd Mayweather Jr. This is the third time that “Money” has taken the BWAA top honors. The other times were in 2013 and 2007.
He and other award winners will be recognized at the 91st BWAA annual awards gala at a date and time to be determined.
Mayweather becomes a three-time BWAA Fighter of the Year-award winner, joining a prestigious group that includes Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Sugar Ray Leonard, Evander Holyfield and Manny Pacquiao. It’s the third time in the last nine years that Mayweather has been awarded Fighter of the Year.
Mayweather (49-0, 26 KOs) won two times in 2015, adding Pacquiao’s WBO welterweight title, to the WBC/WBA belts he already owned in the highest-grossing prizefight of all-time on May 2 in Las Vegas. He announced the retirement of his illustrious career after beating Andre Berto on September 12. Both of Mayweather’s victories were typically one-sided unanimous decisions.
Other BWAA winners for the 2015 year in boxing include the epic Francisco Vargas-Takashi Miura super featherweight fight on November 21 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas as the BWAA’s Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier Fight of the Year. Vargas, who was floored once, got up to score a 9th-round TKO, taking Miura’s WBC belt.
Abel Sanchez, the renowned strategist for WBA/IBF middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, among others, was voted in as the Eddie Futch Trainer of the Year. He’s a first-time recipient after being a finalist in previous years.
For the fourth-straight year, and an unprecedented fifth time overall, Al Haymon was awarded Cus D'Amato Manager of the Year.
Marc Payton and Mark Taffet are co-winners of the Sam Taub broadcast award. Payton, the retired longtime director of HBO's boxing broadcasts, joins Taffet, the former longtime HBO Sports executive, in becoming only the fourth tandem to ever win the Taub award.
Showtime photographer Tom Casino is the Bill Crawford Courage in Overcoming Adversity award winner, overcoming a debilitating illness.
Longtime boxing writer Bernard Fernandez receives the Barney Nagler Long and Meritorious Service award. Fernandez, a former five-term BWAA President, covered boxing for the Philadelphia Daily News since 1987, sitting ringside for some of the greatest fights throughout the world in the last three decades.
Hall of Fame promoter Don Chargin, a boxing legend in Northern California, is the Marvin Kohn Good Guy award champ. Chargin is a staple in the boxing community.
Previously announced winners are Lou DiBella (James A. Farley Award For Honesty and Integrity) and former Washington Post boxing writer William Gildea (Nat Fleischer Award Excellence in Boxing Journalism). Both will be honored at the BWAA gala.
