Your Pu Pu Platter of boxing awards has arrived. So sorry it’s late to your table. It’s still 2011, so it remains warm to the touch. Please savor its many flavors.
In the first installment, that flavor is heavy and serious. In the second one, that flavor is light and fluffy. Just add “of the year” to every category below and devour ’em all. Feel free to send them back to the waiter, your blog host Tim Starks, if you’d prefer something else.
(And don’t forget to consume all the major category nominees and winners from the past week’s blog entries, if you haven’t yet.)
Trainer. In that rare kind of year where Freddie Roach absolutely doesn’t qualify for at least an honorable mention (the horribleness of his stable’s 2011 has probably been understated), I’m going with Robert Garcia for Trainer of the Year. He got several fighters — Nonito Donaire, Brandon Rios and Mikey Garcia — big wins in 2011. You certainly can knock him for Donaire’s lackluster performance against Omar Narvaez, or for Rios’ struggles making weight, or for Antonio Margarito not beating Miguel Cotto. But when TWO fighters in your stable are Fighter of the Year finalists, that’s a damn good year for a trainer. There are few other candidates to speak of. Ann Wolfe has gotten the nod in some other spots and she has a case — James Kirkland looked like dogshit without her, like a mad dog with her — but she really just had one fighter. Same deal with Virgil Hunter, who got Andre Ward Fighter of the Year nods but didn’t do anything else notable with anyone. Both are respectable choices, nonetheless.
