Welcome to The Queensberry Rules’ annual year-end boxing awards, continuing throughout this week. Here’s how we do it around these parts:
The major categories are Knockout of the Year, Fight of the Year and Fighter of the Year. For each category, we give five finalists, with video and/or relevant info. On the second day after a category is introduced, we’ll give you the winner and explain why.
Now: Knockout of the Year nominees. On deck: Fight of the Year nominees and Knockout of the Year winner.
KNOCKOUT OF THE YEAR NOMINEES (IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER)
Nonito Donaire vs Stephon Young
The first of three KO of the Year nominees in less than a month featured Nonito doing Nonito stuff: fast hands, fast finish.
Vergil Ortiz vs Mauricio Herrera
Nobody had ever managed anything close to anything like this to the ultra-sturdy vet.
Devin Haney vs Antonio Moran
Haney cocked that right hand back about three times before striking the hammer.
Canelo Alvarez vs Sergey Kovalev
One-punch KOs are beauties. Sometimes an opponent not going down right away sets up even more frightening knockouts.
Deontay Wilder vs Luis Ortiz II
It’s crazy that you aren’t crazy for suggesting Wilder really might be one of the most powerful punchers in boxing history. Unlike few before him, he can change a whole fight with a single connect.
KNOCKOUT OF THE YEAR HONORABLE MENTIONS (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER*)
Deontay Wilder vs Dominic Breazeale
Gabriel Flores vs Eduardo Pereira dos Reis
Naoya Inoue vs Emmanuel Rodriguez
Teofimo Lopez vs Richard Commey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRbHj3JTZm4
Sam Maxwell vs Sabri Sediri
Teofimo Lopez vs Diego Magdaleno
Jermell Charlo vs Jorge Cota
Derek Chisora vs Artur Szpilka
Richard Commey vs Isa Chaniev
Adam Kownacki vs Gerald Washington
Gervonta Davis vs Hugo Ruiz
Liam Williams vs Joe Mullender
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sPYa-g0468
Vasiliy Lomachenko vs Anthony Crolla
Dave Allen vs Lucas Browne
Antonio Vargas vs Jose Cardenas
Filip Hrgovic vs Gregory Corbin
Gennady Golovkin vs Steve Rolls
* The closest thing to an order here would be on the back end, a lot of them are roughly in the order presented below, a video that proved enormously helpful in assembling the list of candidates and that include other unmentioned top KOs of 2019…
