World Boxing News can confirm Canelo Alvarez as this year’s recipient of the WBN Fighter of the Year Award for a brilliant 2021.
The pound-for-pound number enjoyed an exceptional twelve months after defeating Callum Smith in December 2020 to become the top dog at 168 pounds.
Building on that success, Canelo fought three times over the past year. In February, he stopped WBC mandatory Avni Yildirim in three rounds before taking on Billy Joe Saunders in May.
Canelo beat the Briton in front of a record crowd of seventy-plus thousand fans. The event got staged as the pandemic raged worldwide.
Finally, in November, the Mexican superstar became the first Mexican undisputed champion by cleaning out the division against Caleb Plant.
Three knockouts in three fights solidified Canelo’s place as the face of the sport. He is by far the best boxer on the planet.
CANELO ALVAREZ #1
WBN Lead Contributor, award-winning writer Dan Rafael stated there was only one winner of the newly-designed trophy for 2021.
“I agree. Canelo is the Fighter of the Year – hands down,” said Rafael. “Who is even second?
“Oleksandr Usyk, Josh Taylor, George Kambosos, and Tyson Fury had huge wins. But they only fought once. Canelo’s year is easily better than all of those guys.
“He’s 3-0, with three KOs this year. He beat two undefeated champions in unifications. In addition, he then became undisputed.
“On top of that, Canelo set the all-time American indoor attendance record for boxing at over seventy-four thousand!”
VOTE
WBN usually stages a poll over the holiday period containing a selection of the stellar candidates from the boxing year.
This time around, it got agreed a vote wasn’t needed. Canelo was so far ahead of the rest of the pack.
Anybody taking home the prize other than Canelo Alvarez would have been a travesty. Congratulations to Canelo, who will be receiving the Award soon.
Well deserved!
The rest of the winners from 2021 will get announced in the New Year.
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