Teddy Atlas gives wierd Fighter of the Year verdict

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Amid arguments on who deserves the Fighter of the Year award for the past year, Teddy Atlas gave his surprising opinion that is still being talked about.

Atlas is a respected trainer, analyst and commentator whose opinions in the boxing world is respected, but his verdict on who should receive the Fighter of the Year award for 2023 borders on wierd.

While speaking to ProBox TV, Atlas made the following comment:

‘[Terence Crawford] is so damn special, Inoue, he’s got two wins for the year, over [Stephen] Fulton, who a lot of people were giving a chance of beating him and then [Marlon] Tapales, a real, solid, solid guy and a real busy guy.

‘So, I understand [picking] Inoue, you can’t go wrong in that direction, but for me it is one guy, it’s Crawford.

‘I know that the argument back is going to be “Teddy, he only fought one fight”, yeah, but my argument right back to you is going to be “did you see who he fought? [Errol Spence Jr]”.

“It wasn’t just that he won, it’s how he did it. He just took him apart, literally, piece by piece. He was like a surgeon, piece by piece, it got to the point where it was hard to watch.

‘It was hard to watch him taking apart a guy who was pound-for-pound one of the top guys, that is the thing. He wouldn’t have got the spot if it was just [against] someone else, but it wasn’t someone else, it was Spence.

‘To take apart a fighter of that ilk, of that worth, and to do it the way he did it, wow.’

However, Crawford would not be the first to win the magazine award after fighting one opponent. Joe Frazier did so in 1971 by beating Muhammad Ali. Though there have been great fights since then, it seems none has qualified for the ‘wierd’ applause ever since.