Lucas Matthysse’s April 26 knockout over John Molina was named The Fight of The Year by the Boxing Writers Association of America.
They will be honored on April 24 in New York along with previously announced Fighter of the Year Terence Crawford.
• International Boxing Hall of Famer Freddie Roach won his record seventh Eddie Futch trainer of the year award after a 2014 in which his most notable accomplishments were leading Miguel Cotto to the middleweight championship and Manny Pacquiao to two victories. Roach also won the award in 2003, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2013.
“Words cannot express how much winning an award with Eddie Futch’s name on it means to me,” said Roach, who was trained by the Hall of Famer during his boxing career and was later his assistant. “I’d like to thank the BWAA for this honor. My name may be on the plaque, but I am just a representative of the collective hard work and dedication from the most talented and hardest-working fighters and assistant trainers in the world. It is a privilege to work with them.”
• Al Haymon, boxing’s most powerful person, was voted winner of the Cus D’Amato manager of the year for a record fourth time and the third year in a row. Haymon’s stable of includes more than 180 fighters, including many of the sport’s biggest names.
• Promoter Dan Goossen was posthumously voted winner of the Marvin Kohn Good Guy award. Goossen died on Sept. 29 at age 64 after a short battle with liver cancer.
“It just hurts that he’s not here,” said Tom Brown, Goossen’s brother-in-law, who was his right-hand man at Goossen Promotions and took over running the family business after he died.
“He was an honorable, honest, good guy in a business where it’s not easy to have that kind of personality. There’s no one more deserving. There is so much going on with the game that he’d be so excited about. It’s just hard to talk about it. We all loved him so much.”
• Heavyweight contender and former cruiserweight titleholder Steve Cunningham and his wife/manager, Livvy Cunningham, were selected as co-winners of the Bill Crawford courage award for the grace they showed as their 9-year-old daughter, Kennedy, who has had heart problems since she was born, underwent a heart transplant in December.
“This shows that boxing, which is supposed to be such a heartless sport, has a humane side and that there are really good people who do care about others,” Steve Cunningham said. “We know the boxing world knows our struggle, and they can feel for us.
“I looked at Kennedy, and just as she was about to undergo the surgery, I asked if she was OK, and she said she was fine — and we were about to break down. I’ve always said that she’s so much tougher than me, and I take punches for a living.”
Said Livvy, “It’s an amazing honor, and it shows how much the people in boxing have been behind us through this whole thing. It’s really been heartwarming and inspiring. Kennedy has helped us through everything. Even on the worst day, you look at this 9-year-old girl and you cringe at what’s she’s going through and how strong she is. We had to rise to the occasion and show that there weren’t any cracks in our armor and forge forward. We got a lot of support through the boxing community. Kennedy is a very special girl.”
• Former HBO Sports president Seth Abraham, who helped build the network into a boxing powerhouse in the 1980s and ’90s, will receive the Sam Taub award for excellence in broadcast journalism.
• Jack Hirsch, who left office on Dec. 31 after serving six terms as BWAA president, will receive the John F.X. Condon award for long and meritorious service to boxing.
• Longtime New York Times sports columnist Ira Berkow won the A.J. Liebling award for outstanding boxing writing.
• In previously announced award winners, lightweight champion Terence Crawford was voted the Sugar Ray Robinson fighter of the year, and journalist Mark Whicker, a sports columnist for various outlets in Southern California for nearly 30 years, will receive the Nat Fleischer award for lifetime excellence in boxing journalism, an award voted on only by past winners.
