Boxing News 2014: Floyd Mayweather Jr Receives Sugar Ray Robinson Fighter of the Year Award 2 Days Before Bout vs Marcos Maidana

Controversial American boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr received on Thursday night The Sugar Ray Robinson Award as 2013 Fighter of the Year. He got the award two days before his anticipated bout against Argentinean boxer Marcos Maidana in the same venue, the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The Boxing Writers Association of American (BWAA) presented the awards at its 89^th annual BWAA awards banquet where it also handed awards to 2 other boxers, a trainer and a manager.

In a conference call promoting his May 3 fight, Mayweather said it is a huge honour to the recognised by the BWAA. He said, quoted by RingTV, "I'm very thankful, very blessed, and everybody that vote for me, all the media and all the people on all of the social outlets, different social media sites, I'm just thankful. I didn't do it by myself. Everybody that's on this conference call played a major role with helping me and helping AI."

Other BWAA awardees include Freddie Roach, the trainer of Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao whom Mayweather refuses to fight because the eight-division titleholder belongs to the camp of Bob Arum's TopRank. Roach was given the Eddie Futch award as the Trainer for the Year for the sixth time.

Money May's adviser, Al Haymon, got the Cus D'Amato Manager of the Year award.

Recipients of the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier Fight of the Year award were Timothy Bradley and Ruslan Provodnikov. The award was presented by former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, who said, "They gave everything they had in the ring and did themselves proud. As a promoter, I encourage all of our guys to give the same effort that these two did."

Ironically, Bradley just lost his unbeaten boxer status on April 12 when Pacquiao won by unanimous decision in their rematch.