The Ring is proud to present “The Boxing Esq. Podcast with Kurt Emhoff”.  Emhoff, an attorney based in New York City, is a top boxing manager who has represented over 10 world champions in his 20-plus years in the sport. 

His guest on this episode is the Editor-in-Chief of Ring Magazine – Mr. Doug Fischer.

They spoke about how The Ring Magazine and ringtv.com are faring during this pandemic. They also undertook the difficult task of making mid-year assessments of the traditional year-end categories such as Fight of the Year, Round of the Year, KO of the Year, Upset of the Year, and Fighter of the Year in the time of COVID.

Additionally, they discussed the upcoming boxing schedule and previewed some of the bigger tentatively scheduled big fights such as Lomachenko-Lopez and Dubois-Joyce.

Below are a few excerpts from the interview:

On the leading candidate for Fighter of the Year in this truncated pandemic-marred 2020:

“I mean, it’s gotta be Tyson Fury, right?  My sentimental choice would be Chocolatito Gonzalez.  But, Fury, he’s a heavyweight, it was the biggest stage. It was a fight that on paper where Wilder was a slight favorite, but not a huge favorite. So it was viewed as a competitive matchup going in and Fury showed up. He showed up. Wilder did not really show up. But Fury definitely did what he said he was gonna do, which I think is part of the story of the fight.  Hats off to ESPN and Fox and PBC and Top Rank, because I would say hands down, that was the event of the year. I was there for that. 

Been a long time since a heavyweight fight in Las Vegas drew that kind of attention and had that kind of electricity – even a couple days before the fight. So, they put on a big event. It was a big event. The eyes of the world were watching. It’s the biggest stage in the sport, the glamour division, the heavyweight championship, the Ring Magazine heavyweight championship was on the line and Fury delivered. So, I got to figure Fury is the front runner. “

On what the mid-year candidate for Upset of the Year is: 

“I still think Jeison Rosario over J-Rock, Julian Williams is (the biggest) upset. But even that fight, I don’t know if you recall, but there were people who were saying that Rosario was a live dog. I wasn’t terribly familiar with him. But people who had taken time to go and watch old fights with Rosario said the kid had talent.  They were right. And J-Rock looked like an elite boxer (with his win) over Jared Hurd.  He was a unified champ who had two major titles at 154 lbs.”

On what the candidates for KO of the Year are:

“Sometimes people will value a knockout by the stature of the fighters. Sometimes when it’s a high profile fight, the knockout doesn’t have to be like a cold knockout. It can just be a stoppage like we had with Tyson Fury against Deontay Wilder. The guy who was expected to score the knockout was dominated and stopped. I could see people saying that. But you know, I think most fans, at least the hardcore fans, they go for the quality that knockout. And they’re talking about that paralyzing one-hitter, quitter, where a guy gets hit and is like frozen for a second and then collapses and he’s gone. The same night that Rosario upset Williams, there was a light heavyweight fight on ESPN between Eleider Alvarez and Michael Seals.  There was a knockout that was pretty darn dramatic that the Colombian from Canada scored. And that’s the kind of knockout where it makes you jump out of your seat.

And young Ryan Garcia had a good one against Francisco Fonseca. And that was in the first round. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that was like a quick hook. And it was like a one-hitter quitter. Fonseca went down flat on his back. And the referee said, okay, it’s over. Another thing you”ve got to factor is the guy who got knocked out, does he have a chin? Are we used to seeing this dude knocked down? And I mean, Fonseca has been stopped before, but I don’t think he’s been wiped out. So not like that. So that’s a leading candidate.”

On the Vasyl Lomachenko-Teofimo Lopez fight:

“That’s another fight where if the young bull doesn’t get the more seasoned veteran out in five or six rounds that becomes really interesting over the next six rounds, if it’s a 12 round fight. And not because I don’t think that Lopez can go the championship distance. I know he’s going to be in condition to do so. But when you’re dealing with somebody with the ring IQ of a Lomachenko what does that do? The frustration factor. How does Lopez deal with that during the rounds and how does he and his father deal with that between rounds? What kind of adjustments do they make? We know Lomachenko can adjust. We know that Lomachenko’s dad, he’s got Kool-Aid in his veins. He’s not cool. He’s cold. And we know he’s an elite level trainer. We know that they can make adjustments, we’ve seen that from them. We.ve seen them go more tactical or in the case against Linares, we’ve seen Papa Chenko go to the whip and say, okay, we’ve got to get in this dude’s ass. You’ve got to kill this dude’s body. And that’s exactly what he did in the late rounds against Linares, after the knockdown. There was a decision that was made. All right, this is what’s gotta happen. You gotta stress this dude out, and you’re going to have to tap that body and make something happen. And he did it. 

So now we’ll see if Lopez can do that. If Team Lopez can make those type of adjustments. Well, we will see. I wouldn’t be totally shocked if Lopez clipped him early. But I don’t think it’s going to happen.”