Last September, as the bell rang to open the ninth round of Terence Crawford’s super middleweight showdown with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Crawford emerged from his corner with a purpose. The first eight rounds of the fight had been competitive. Crawford had probably won most of them but they had been close enough to feel the need to push the pace. “I had to make sure I set a tone,” Crawford said. What followed was one of the sharpest three minutes of Crawford’s career, a one-sided whipping (33–10 in punches landed, per CompuBox) that sparked a surge that powered Crawford, 38, to the most significant win of his career. A win, as it turns out, that earned Crawford Sports Illustrated’s Male Fighter of the Year.
A single win often isn’t enough for a Fighter of the Year nod, especially when the competition is stiff. Naoya Inoue, the undisputed super bantamweight champion, went 4–0 in 2025, wiping out Alan Picasso last month in another one-sided title defense. Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez had two wins, both in 115-pound title unifications. Like Crawford, Inoue and Rodriguez are widely viewed as top-five pound-for-pound talents.
