UNDISPUTED LIGHTWEIGHT CHAMPION Katie Taylor has been named Ring Magazine’s Female Fighter of the Year for the second year in a row.
Taylor is the first back-to-back winner of the award, albeit the female category has been in existence for only four years. The Ring Magazine’s awards are generally seen as the most prestigious end-of-year awards in professional boxing.
The last fighter to win the male version of the award two years in a row was Manny Pacquiao in 2008 and 2009. Prior to Taylor, only seven fighters in total had ever been crowned back-to-back Ring Magazine Fighter of the Year since the inception of the award in 1928 (Joe Louis, Ezzard Charles, Ingemar Johansson, Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali, Evander Holyfield and ‘Pac-Man’).
Taylor also recently replaced American star Claressa Shields as The Ring’s women’s pound-for-pound number one following a year in which she concretely beat fellow pound-for-pound contender Delfine Persoon in a long-awaited rematch and dominated former Spanish amateur standout Miriam Gutierrez in her most recent undisputed title defence.
For the second year in a row, our Female Fighter of the Year award goes to undisputed lightweight champion and pound-for-pound No. 1 @KatieTaylor. MASSIVE CONGRATULATIONS, CHAMP! 🇮🇪🥊🇮🇪 pic.twitter.com/BtltWjFybz
— Bible of Boxing (@ringmagazine) December 27, 2020
In a separate but also coveted awards announcement, the 34-year-old before Christmas retained her status as the Boxing Writers Association of America’s Female Fighter of the Year, becoming the first woman to win that award two years in succession, also (Taylor was already the BWAA’s pound-for-pound number one prior to being crowned its best female fighter for 2020).
