The Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) Announces 2025 Award Nominees

It’s that time of the year again when fighters’ performances from the previous year are recognized and nominated for awards. The Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) released the 2025 award nominees on Monday afternoon.

The following are the award categories and the fighters nominated for each one:

BWAA Fighter Of The Year

Dmitry Bivol

Terence Crawford

Naoya Inoue

Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez

Rene Santiago

Fight Of The Year

Carlos Canizales KO5 Panya Pradabsri II

Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz W10 Angelo Fierro

Chris Eubank W 12 Conor Benn

Christian Mbilli W 10 Lester Martinez

Kenshiro Teraji KO 12 Seigo Yuri Akui

Trainer of the Year

Ben Davison

Freddy Fundora

Robert Garcia

Shingo Inoue

Andy Lee

Manager of the Year

Keith Connelly

Robert Garcia

Peter Kahn

Vadim Kornilov

Rick Mirigian

Taub Award

Jim Gray

Dave Harmon

Roy Jones

Mauro Ranallo

James “Smitty” Smith

Marvin Kohn Good Guy award

Russ Anber

Chris DeBlasio

Sugar Ray Leonard

Steve Pratt

Don Turner

Barney Nagler Long and Meritorious Service award

Henry Hascup

Don Majeski

Dr. Nitin Sethi

John Sheppard

John McCain & Bill Crawford Award for Courage In Overcoming Adversity

Billy Dib

Joe Gallagher

Sampson Lewkowicz

Christy Martin

Yudai Shigeoka

In an email sent to its members, the following announcement was made regarding the annual awards dinner: “The date and location of the annual BWAA Awards Dinner has yet to be determined, but that information will be sent out as soon as the arrangements have been finalized.”

One of the most competitive categories will be Fighter of the Year, and the likely scenario is that the award will come down to Terence Crawford and Naoya Inoue. Crawford only fought once in 2025, but that was a huge unanimous decision over Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Inoue, on the other hand, defended his undisputed title four times against mandatory challengers. Who will win the prestigious Fighter of the Year Award? We will find out in the next couple of months after the BWAA sorts out all of its votes.

Abraham Gonzalez

Abraham Gonzalez is the founder of FightsATW. His journalistic work has been published and used across several platforms to include online, network TV and promotional companies. He is an American Public University alumnus and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA). Abraham was the Managing Editor for NYFights, Big Fight Weekend, contributed to FanSidedMMA and ProBoxTV.

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