The Boxing Writers Association of America has finalized the ballot for its 2018 awards in eight categories.
The nominees for the organization’s most prestigious award, the Sugar Ray Robinson Fighter of the Year award, are:
• Undisputed cruiserweight world champion Oleksandr Usyk (16-0, 12 KOs), who won the eight-man World Boxing Super Series tournament in July and became only the fourth undisputed champion of the four-belt era and the first in cruiserweight division history. He also won all three of his 2018 bouts on the road.
• Pound-for-pound king and unified lightweight world champion Vasiliy Lomachenko (12-1, 9 KOs), the 2017 winner, who moved up to lightweight and knocked out Jorge Linares in the 10th round to win a title in a third weight division in May before winning a lopsided decision over Jose Pedraza to unify 135-pound belts on Dec. 8.
• Junior welterweight titlist Maurice Hooker (25-0-3, 17 KOs), who traveled to Terry Flanagan’s hometown of Manchester, England, in June and won a split decision to claim a vacant belt, followed by a seventh-round knockout of Alex Saucedo in Saucedo’s hometown of Oklahoma City in a November defense.
• Mikey Garcia (39-0, 30 KOs), who outpointed Sergey Lipinets in February to win a junior welterweight world title to become a four-division titleholder before returning to the lightweight division to outpoint Robert Easter Jr. in a title unification bout in July.
• Welterweight titlist Terence Crawford (34-0, 25 KOs), the 2014 winner, who vacated the undisputed junior welterweight title to move up in weight for a one-sided, ninth-round knockout of Jeff Horn in June to win a world title in a third weight class, followed by a one-sided, 12th-round knockout of Jose Benavidez Jr. in his first defense in October.
Full members of the BWAA will vote on the awards over the next month and winners will be announced in early 2019. The winners will be honored at the 94th annual BWAA awards dinner in the spring at a site to be determined.
Nominees for the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier Fight of the Year award are heavyweight titleholder Deontay Wilder’s exciting 10th-round knockout of Luis “King Kong” Ortiz in March; Jarrett Hurd’s split-decision win against Erislandy Lara to unify junior middleweight titles in an all-out slugfest in April; Lomachenko’s 10th-round knockout of Linares to win a lightweight world title in May; junior welterweight Saucedo’s seventh-round stoppage of Lenny Zappavigna in a back-and-forth bloodbath in June; and Canelo Alvarez’s narrow majority-decision win over Gennady Golovkin to claim the middleweight title in their action-packed rematch in September.
The nominees for the Eddie Futch Trainer of the Year award are Anatoly Lomachenko (the 2017 winner), Jay Deas, Robert Garcia, and Derrick James.
Nominees for the Cus D’Amato Manager of the Year award went to Keith Connolly, 2016 and 2017 winner Egis Klimas, Chepo Reynoso, and Sam Katkovski.
The Sam Taub broadcast award nominees are Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza; HBO analyst Roy Jones Jr., Showtime Sports executive producer David Dinkins, HBO senior producer Dave Harmon, and Showtime Sports broadcaster Jim Gray.
The nominees for the Bill Crawford award for courage in overcoming adversity are the late Sen. John McCain, Main Events promoter Kathy Duva, lineal heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, trainer Jose Santa Cruz, and Showtime broadcaster Brian Custer.
The Barney Nagler Long and Meritorious Service award nominees are Hall of Fame broadcaster Jim Lampley of HBO, CompuBox founder Bob Canobbio, Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti, MGM Resorts International public relations executive director Scott Ghertner, and former middleweight and light heavyweight world champion Bernard Hopkins.
Nominees for the Marvin Kohn Good Guy award include publicist Steve Brener, the president of Brener Zwikel & Associates; Ray Stallone of HBO Sports media relations; four-division world titleholder Nonito Donaire; and two-division world titlist Badou Jack.
On Monday, unified women’s middleweight world titlist Claressa Shields (8-0, 2 KOs) was named winner of the Christy Martin award for 2018 female fighter of the year in a unanimous vote of the BWAA women’s boxing committee.
The Nat Fleischer award for career excellence in boxing journalism, which is voted on only by past winners, will be announced in the next few weeks.